First Day of Advent

I love Advent.

The countdown to Christmas. The waiting for the Christ child. The hymns sung in anticipation. Blue is apparently the new purple- all the vestments and candles are now blue. Pastor described the color should be like that deep blue that occurs right before the first light of dawn appears. The color before the advent of the new day. I love that color, too.

O Come, O Come Emmanuel. All these years I wondered who this guy Emmanuel is.

Silly me. The translation of Emmanuel, or Immanuel, is "God with us." Isaiah 7:14 states "Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel." Many Christians believe that this is the prophecy of the coming of Christ. I will believe that Immanuel is Jesus, and we await his birth during advent.

Our church always has a kid play their instrument during the lighting of the advent candle. It always gives me goosebumps when that lone instrument plays while the acolyte struggles to light the candle on the huge wreath. Today Melissa played the flute, and was awesome. So good that I sought her out afterwards (she was one of my Youth Groupers a few years ago...now she's a Senior at the high school) to ask if she would be willing to tutor Z-girl after school in the flute. Just to give her that little extra besides her once a week lessons at the school.

While waiting for Melissa's "fans" to finish with her, I heard a most obnoxious thing...someone asked a gentlemen popular in the church where his wife was. He said she was home, doing ----, because this is the only time she has to herself. Wait, what? During church? She's a connected church member- she skipped church to do this stuff? I don't know, I've missed my share of church. But to run errands? Because it's the only time you have? Grrr....

This burns my butt. Just like the moms that tell me they can't do something because "I work". Or they couldn't help out because "I have three kids." Damn! I have three kids AND I work. AND I find time to go to church. I MUST be superwoman! Next feat- able to leap tall buildings. And sing hymns while I'm doing it!