Come to Me - New Evangelizers

Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened. (Matthew 11:28)

This Advent has provided me with a unique opportunity. While the world has been frantically focusing on shopping, decorating, and pushing the Christmas season out of the door to make room for the next economic windfall, I’ve taken a back seat.

As I mentioned in a previous article we are living in a two-bedroom apartment while our new house is being built. All of our Christmas decorations and most of our household goods are in storage. With these limitations I have been unable to decorate, bake, or do any of the other things that would detract from Advent devotions.

Throughout Advent I have been focusing on all I don’t have, how I can’t decorate, can’t bake, can’t shop because I have no place to store anything. So I have focused on all the negatives.

In a few days, December 20, I am supposed to be moving into my new house. I look, and what is left to be done is a long list, and I have trouble seeing how it will happen in a week.

I woke up yesterday, dreading this week, fearful that it would not happen, at least not with human power alone. I feared my husband and I would be in constant arguments, because of our differing outlooks on the world. As I prepared for mass I fervently prayed for God’s help to get through the week.

At Mass one line from the sermon resonated with me. Father said, “Where is the light in my life?” Then the light came on for me. I had been traveling in darkness, focusing on all that was wrong, all that I couldn’t control. Let me repeat: All that I couldn’t control.

Since the beginning of the year I have felt out of control. Waiting on editors, realtors, home buyers, home sellers, builders…and the list goes on. Now at the end of the year it occurs to me: all my attempts to gain some control over this runaway train we call life have slipped through my fingers like sand at the beach.

At that point, I realized someone else had been and was in control, someone whom in my human desire for control I overlooked. It wasn’t that I ran away from my faith, I just didn’t let it go far enough.

Through my prayers and Mass I realized the time had come to rely on God. If my plans were meant to be then it would be God that brought them to fruition. It was time for me to give it to God.

So what does all of this have to do with my Advent devotion? Because of the housing situation I have had the more time to devote to Advent prayer and devotion instead of the bustle of the world’s Christmas season. And because of the extra time for Advent I have reached a place, have seen a light and realized that if I let go and let God, if I let Him into my life, He will grant me a peace that I cannot find on my own. He will bear my burdens. He will be my light.

Copyright © 2013, Christina Weigand

photo credit: Www.CourtneyCarmody.com/ via photopin cc

Christina Weigand

Christina Weigand’s a writer, wife, and mother of four. She is also Nana to three granddaughters. She lives with her husband and youngest daughter in Cranberry Twp. Pennsylvania, returning there after a short sabbatical in Washington. Currently, she’s working on fantasy novels and inspirational writing. Through her writing, she strives to share the Word of God and help people young and old to realize the love and mercy He has for everyone. When she’s not writing, she’s active in her local Church as a lector, Bible Study, volunteering at her daughter’s school helping the children develop a love for reading and writing. Jesus fills her home with love as she shares Him through her writing.