the advent.

{from here}

I don't know much about the season of advent. It's not something our church traditionally pays much attention to, but Jordan and I decided long ago that we wanted to change that, for our little family anyway. 

So we read through the Hours. We try to do something each day leading up to Christmas to highlight this season of waiting for the Savior. We're not great at it. It's new for us, so sometimes we bumble our way through, trying to do the best we can to relish what this season really means.

My favorite part, though, and perhaps the only one we really do well, is the advent carols service we attend each year on the first Sunday in December. This weekend was rough. I had finals on Monday, and I wasn't sure it was practical to go to an advent service when I needed to be buried deep in communication theory. 

But we went anyway. We don't have many traditions of our very own just yet, so the ones we do have, we relish. They're important, I think, rituals and traditions, in so many ways. There's a holiness to the doing and repeating, and as I sat in that beautiful church and listened to the voices of the angels, goosebumps filled my arms and tears welled up in my eyes.

Do you ever have those moments, moments when you know you're in the right place, when you've finally done the right thing?

I have not been faithful lately. These last few weeks I have felt unlike myself. I am not a going-through-the-motions kind of person, but that is exactly what I've done, and I hate it. I am tired of going through the motions.

The Word became flesh and dwelt among us.

That's all I could think on Sunday night. 

This life is messy. It is hurtful and chaotic and leaves even the best of us battered and bruised and beaten. 

The Word became flesh and dwelt among us. 

Our God could have chosen so many ways to introduce Himself to us. He could have terrified us with His power. Drowned us in His goodness. Overcome us with His justice and might.

Instead, He became us, and accomplished all of the above.

The Creator of the universe became a crying, screaming, naked baby. For me.

The Word became flesh and dwelt among us. 

As I sat there on Sunday, smelling the incense and listening to the creak of the wooden pews and feeling the frigid air blowing in through the back doors, I was simply overcome. Maybe my senses were on fire. Or maybe I suddenly knew: this crazy, frustrating, overwhelming life: 

My Savior lived it too. 

The Word became flesh and dwelt among us. 

If I had to boil this season down to ten words or less, those are the words I would choose. 

This life has its ups and downs. And we all seem to be waiting for someone who understands, for someone who can hold our hearts and our struggles and our hurts and our happinesses. We're just waiting for someone who gets us, someone who knows what it's like to be us, so small and fragile in a world that is big and beautiful and complicated.

The Word became flesh and dwelt among us. 

He knows. 

Our God came to save us by becoming us. By walking around in our shoes a little bit. 

And that truth brings me comfort during a season that has been less than I planned. My Savior knows. Understands. Sympathizes. 

Because He was. 

The Word became flesh and dwelt among us.