Advent: Make room for your miracle

2020 has been a whole year of Advent, waiting with anticipation for something better, for change to come, for whatever is on the other side of this to take us to the other side of this. Because surely, this can't be all there is? This can't be how things will be from now on...

Don't you want more? Don't you (and we) need a miracle?

With the beauty of hindsight and historical accounts, we can see the miracle that Jesus was when he was born to Mary all those Christmases ago, when Israel was in dire straights. We can read about their pain and marvel at their rescue. We make comments and judgements about how they received Jesus and the impact he made. Because of this, it can be easy to forget the surprise and scandal that the birth of Jesus was to them.

What it could be to us.

2020 has been a surprising year. I'm sure you've experienced a mixed bag of good and ugly, of the unexpected and the horrifically mundane, and while you're in it, it can be hard to see what this year will mean for you in twenty years time. It's hard to understand the changes that are being grooved into humanity through the events of this year. How can we know? So much has happened and a lot of it seems negative and difficult and like it can't possibly lead to anywhere good.

But as Rilke said:

"Why do you want to shut out of your life any uneasiness, any misery, any depression, since after all you don't know what work these conditions are doing inside you? Why do you want to persecute yourself with the question of where all this is coming from and where it is going? Since you know, after all, that you are in the midst of transitions and you wished for nothing so much as to change. If there is anything unhealthy in your reactions, just bear in mind that sickness is the means by which an organism frees itself from what is alien; so one must simply help it to be sick, to have its whole sickness and to break out with it, since that is the way it gets better."

Haven't we longed for change? Haven't you cried for something different? Haven't we collectively been fighting for a new way for far too long?

Advent and Christmas are inclusive. It's not denial or distraction. It's a story that leads you into the heart of your life—not dismissing your issues by burying them or gorging yourself on them by obsessing over them. It holds them in the tension of faith. It shows you that the way to get better is to go all the way through what is happening in you and to you. Grace such as this makes room for a miracle.

Mary and Joseph didn't have hindsight when it came to Jesus. All they knew, according to the stories, was what the Angel told Mary, and that a baby was growing within her body. They could have persecuted themselves with questions of where it was coming from and what it will do, and perhaps they did their fair share of that. But ultimately, Mary broke out with her pregnancy, Joseph with his devotion, and they gave themselves to the process of becoming in the middle of where they were and with what they had.

What you're in right now, might not seem like cause for celebration. You might be tired, or fed up, or just hungry for something more and beyond and better. You might be looking forward to Christmas as a means of distraction, or maybe you're dreading it because of what it reveals about your life. The challenge lovingly set before you is to stand where you are, with what you have and look for God in the midst of it. If you question how God could possibly be in the middle of all this, put hindsight to good use, see that in the middle of Mary and Joseph's impossible situation,

a miracle was born.

Dr Alexander Shaia said:

"The deepest dark is not the place where grace goes to die, but the deepest dark is the place grace goes to be reborn. Christmas teaches us something that's beyond hope. Hope is a great place to start, but Christmas wants us to know, not just hope, that it is precisely in the deep dark that the new grace is born."

Mindful Prompt: Grace cannot be extinguished. It is perpetual and present and always—part of the fabric of the universe. And even though it may seem like there is so much darkness, stay, show up, be here in it. Grace is reborn in times such as these.

Continued in the Advent series "Make Room For A Miracle", this week with a subscription in the App.

Written by Liz Milani.
Instagram: @thepracticeco