Nevertheless, life does not stand still. Leanne
and Jon downsized into a new house in Schwenksville, Pennsylvania. Sam did
start as a freshman at Goshen College in Indiana. Hannah graduated from Messiah
College and has begun teaching high school Spanish in Mechanicsburg,
Pennsylvania. Elizabeth is in 8th grade at Wauwatosa Montessori School, and
Isaac is a junior at Grove City College in Pennsylvania. I have begun writing
devotionals for the Guideposts publication Strength and Grace:
Devotionals for Caregivers. We are still deciding if Erik and Juno will
visit for Christmas from Dallas, where he continues as Director of Music for
the School of Rock.
How much we need the Advent lessons of
constructive waiting in 2020! In the Lectionary Epistle lesson for the first
Sunday of Advent from 2 Peter 3:8 we read, “with the Lord one day is like a
thousand years, and a thousand years are like one day.” In my Psalms prayers on
November 30, the first weekday of Advent 2020, I realized this was an echo of
Psalm 90:4. “A thousand years in your sight are like yesterday when it is past,
or like a watch in the night.” As long as 2020 seems to have been, the waiting
will certainly persist into 2021, when passed will be a mere watch in the
night.
Perhaps all of 2020 can be an Advent of
constructive waiting. Perhaps as we await the celebration of the coming of the
Prince of Peace, we see ourselves as his agent of peace in our time, living now
into the peace the angels announced at his birth. “Glory to God in the highest
heaven, and on earth peace among those whom he favors!” (Luke 2:14)
Merry
Christmas!
