Advent Joy 2010

Last year during Advent a bad thing happened to my family. I think I can talk about it now. For a year I shoved it into a dark hole and refused to look at it, because it hurt like dull knives. I had saved the requisite several hundred dollars for Christmas shopping over a period of months---quite a feat on our income—and we were on our way, a rare trip with the whole family, to Portland where we would stay overnight, visit with relatives and shop for the perfect Christmas gifts. Somehow, even though I never carry my purse, I ended up leaving it in a gas station restroom along the I-5. There is no happy ending to this story. The money was never recovered and I spent the bedraggled, broken trip back home weeping like an insane woman in the back seat of the mini-van. I have rarely been so angry at myself.
There is however a very joyful ending to this story. At some point my middle daughter, Gemma said, “Mom, what have you always said Christmas is all about?” She was right, but it was so hard right then to accept. Readers of this column will recall that I usually write an anti-materialism rant about this time of the year. Well, this is all very fine to espouse when the means to material goods are there. Having it all completely and irrevocably stripped away put us to the test, and my beloved children and husband scored much higher than I. God eternal, all-powerful, all-knowing, all-present, pure love, immeasurable in all quantities, chose to become a completely helpless infant, shivering on a bed of straw because somehow His becoming like me would raise me up to Him…and I find it rather stunning that someone who believes this could even blink when the packages are taken away. No wonder we Christians have trouble convincing the atheists.
St. Augustine said of God, “My heart is restless until it rests in you.” When our happiness is connected to things, we will forever be aching for something more. Joy is different from happiness. Joy is knowing that God is in love with the human race. It does not depend on having lots of things, or money or power or friends or health. It depends on knowing who you are in God’s eyes---eternally important, just little you. There is no true joy outside of knowing God. Many people want to know God on their own terms. God you are great, but stay over there please. God you are great but gimme the goodies now.
My youngest remarked randomly one day, “I wish I could be a fish eaten by God.” She gets it. This intense desire for God, to be completely consumed by God, is written on every person’s heart. To fill that God shaped hole with anything but a pure abandonment to the love of God, is to be forever—wanting.