anticipation

it's that feeling that something big is just around the corner. you can't see it, you don't know what exactly is coming or what it will involve, but you feel it in the air and you feel it in your bones. something exciting is about to happen.

human beings live on anticipation. being able to look forward to better days ahead is what keeps us alive. we plow through the dreary days and hang in through the storms in hopes that the sun will shine again.

and it does. after cold, dark winter nights, the sun shines through again. new life springs forth again. what was dead and buried is birthed anew all over again. time and time again.

it's almost as if the waiting is there to enlarge our expectation. almost as if the dying is necessary to make room for something else to be birthed.

this is why today, all over the world, we celebrate the waiting. advent. we celebrate the coming of Jesus, hope of the world, who came to die that we may live.

that we may look forward, with anticipation, to a new year ahead. a fresh start. another chance to start over. to believe that better days are ahead. and to do our part in working to make that happen. to live better, and to love better.

"Hope begins in the dark, the stubborn hope that if you just show up and try to do the right thing, the dawn will come." // Anne Lamott