Silence doesn't mean anything...

My heart and mind are not in a place to really blog these days! Instead, I am choosing to spend time focusing on the "other" season that is going on in my life instead of the one that has been consuming me for over a year.

Advent.

A lot has changed these last few days, so instead of choosing fear, I am choosing freedom in Christ.

Regan and I have been reading an advent prayer this whole week as part of our morning devotions. It has really meant a lot to me to meditate on these words through out the day...

Prayer for Advent: Week 1
The Gift of Gifts
From The Valley of Vision:Puritan Prayers and Devotions
Contemporary rendering by Russ Ramsey, 2011


O SOURCE OF ALL GOOD,

What shall I render to You for the gift of gifts,
You own dear Son, begotten, not created,
my Redeemer, Proxy, Surety, Substitute,
His self-emptying incomprehensibility,
His infinity of love beyond the heart's grasp.

Here lies the wonder of wonders:
He came below to raise me above,
He was born like me that I might become like Him.

Here is love:
when I cannot rise to Him He draws near on wings of grace, 
to raise me to Himself.

Here is power;
when Deity and humanity were infinitely apart
He united them in indissoluble unity, the uncreated and the created.

Here is wisdom;
when I was undone, with no will to return to Him,
and no intellect to devise recovery,
He came, God-incarnate, to save me to the uttermost,
as man to die my death,
to shed satisfying blood on my behalf,
to work out a perfect righteousness for me.

O God, take me in spirit to the watchful shepherds and enlarge my mind;
let me hear good tidings of great joy,
and in hearing, let me believe, rejoice, praise, and adore Him,
bathe my conscience in an ocean of calm,
lift my eyes to a reconciled Father,
place me there with the ox, ass, camel, and goat,
that I might look with them upon my Redeemer's face,
and in Him account myself delivered from sin;
let me with Simeon clasp the new-born Child to my heart,
let me embrace Him with undying faith,
let me glory in the truth that He is mine and I am His.

In Him You have given me so much that heaven can give no more.

Amen

His promise is...when I cannot rise, He draws me to himself.

In this season, I want to know, feel, and grasp that truth.

I want to gaze in wonder, not in the questions of why I am not pregnant, or why Regan lost his job, but gaze in wonder at the ONE that is in control. The one that came during THIS season, the season of our lives, and this Holiday season, to set us free.

In hearing and believing these things, may I rejoice, praise and adore him. May I embrace Him with dying faith.

Patiently Praying in awe and wonder, to the God that draws me near on wings of grace.

Much Love-
Allison