โFaith is stepping out into the unknown with nothing to guide us but a hand just beyond our grasp.โ
~ ๐
๐ซ๐๐๐๐ซ๐ข๐๐ค ๐๐ฎ๐๐๐ก๐ง๐๐ซ
I didnโt expect new glasses to feel like a revelation.
But there I was last week, bundled up in my favorite, dog-laden chair when everything sharpened:
the birds in the feeder outside my window,
the tiny print on my phone,
even the unfortunate truth that I am long overdue for a manicure.
It felt like someone restored a layer of my life I didnโt realize I had been straining to see.
For months, probably longer, I had been compensating unknowingly: squinting, adjusting, holding books at armโs length, working harder than I knew just to make out the words.
You rarely notice the weight youโre carrying until something finally lifts it.
As the world came into focus, my attention drifted toward the bookcase in my office, filled with a set of old, beloved commentaries I havenโt touched in ages, simply because their small print had grown too difficult to read.
They had gathered dust in the interim, but not irrelevance.
Last week, for the first time in a long time, I took one out. The words that once defeated me welcomed me back.
I lingered in Lukeโs Gospel, drawn again to the passage that has always felt like the heartbeat of Advent: ๐๐๐ซ๐ฒโ๐ฌ ๐๐๐ ๐ง๐ข๐๐ข๐๐๐ญ.
It wasnโt a leap, by the way.
As with my new lenses, it was a gentle progression:
clarity led me to old treasures,
old treasures led me to ancient hope,
and ancient hope led me to Mary.
And there she stood, in that magnificent convergence of heaven and earth, uttering the line that reached all the way from the page into my newly clarified day:
โ๐โ๐ ๐ด๐๐๐๐โ๐ก๐ฆ โ๐๐ ๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐ก ๐กโ๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐ ๐๐, ๐๐๐ โ๐๐๐ฆ ๐๐ ๐ป๐๐ ๐๐๐๐.โ
She had not yet seen the road ahead. She didnโt know the sorrows or joys that would shape her life. But she knew Godโs character, and it was enough.
Mary spoke before she knew how her story would hurt. I speak after.
Mary could not have known. I know all too well.
The postures are different, certainly, but the proclamation is the same.
So I say it with her now, not because life has been easy, but because God has been faithful:
โ๐ป๐ โ๐๐ ๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐ก ๐กโ๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐ ๐๐.โ
He has, indeed.
I find myself naming the same God Mary invoked:
the One who never let me fall,
the One who put me back together,
the One who has matched me step for step through terrain I never would have chosen,
the One who kept my heart in custody when grief intruded and sorrow tried to stake its claim.
Though not all is as I wish it were, I will never blame the only One who offers me hope.
Truly, He has done great things for me.
So, I receive with fresh gladness the invitation this Advent extends:
to notice the ways God clarifies if not His ways, at least His presence in the midst of what we cannot understand,
to attend to all that He reveals,
and to remember that even when life blurs, His goodness has been steady all along.