Waiting for God

And so once more the wheel of the year has turned

and we are back at the beginning,
at this time of waiting.
Four weeks of waiting.
…
We have turned aside to this patch of holy ground
to sit and wait
at this time precisely set aside, like Lent,
for waiting.

Four weeks now of waiting.
Four weeks!
the insistent world in which we live
would have us want things now,
with the click of a button
and the blink of an eye.
But we have turned aside to wait,
in God’s good time.

So what are we waiting for?
waiting for God to come and take us home,
to lead us up her garden path,
past trees of Wisdom and of Life,
to open wide the door,
to cheer our spirits
chase off the gloomy clouds of night,
to close the path to misery,
put on the kettle,
sit us down to tea and cake
and make us laugh.
…

Waiting for God is surely a strange occupation,
for God is all about us
in the wild skies,
the clouds unravellled by the wind,
the sun that turns the trees to to gold and sea to duck-egg blue,
in the gorse that flowers even in frost,
the shades of winter bracken,
the lifted wings of swans,
the cries of whiffling geese,
in the kindness of strangers,
in acts of unexpected courtesy,
in the fresh companionship of old friends,
…
How can we wait for a God who has already arrived?

Because things are not all sweetness and light.
…
We have other tales to tell, if we dare tell them,
and we, we are not shivering in the cold of Kashmir,
nor striving to survive Mugabe’s madness,
nor are we high-walled and roadblocked in Bethlehem.
Sometimes it seems God is more than just four weeks away.

And so we wait.
We all wait.

excerpts from ‘Waiting for God’ by Trevor Dennis from his book The Christmas Stories

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Original post from the excellent Love Blooms Bright Blog...