“How long, Oh Lord, will you forget me forever?”

Anyone who knows me well knows that these very words are continually the echoes of my heart. As long as I can remember, I have yearned to be a mom. Yet here I sit and wait and watch. This prayer still sits unanswered. It often feels like a heavy weight upon my shoulders. Honestly I’m not one to swear, but somedays it feels like those are the only words that can be uttered from my lips. Today I want to scream that visceral F word because it feels like it’s the only word that captures what I’m feeling as I wait.

And with my own unanswered prayer, I look around and see so many other unanswered prayers throughout this world. One only open a newspaper or turn on the radio or television. At first, I find myself sad and angry. But now as this season of Advent begins,  I find myself soul weary and very tired. All I can do is call upon God; for God to send Gods son to rend the heavens.

This precious infant broke into the world; broke not into a clean room but instead into the stench and stealth of the manger. Jesus was born among cattle, pigs and other animals. It wasn’t the sparkly clean that we often make it out to be. It was quite the oppposite. Yet Jesus promises to come again; to judge the living and the dead.

We don’t know when this day or hour will come. But it seems to me that God calls us to prepare and be prepared–“Prepare ye the way of the Lord.” God continually calls us to love our neighbors. God calls us to “do justice, love kindness and mercy, and walk humbly with our God!” And as I am reminded of that promise, I can’t help but cling to the one who comes as Emmanuel–God with us; to give in to my own tiredness and my own vulnerability and trust that this one will rend the heavens as his son is born and breaks into this broken world.

So as we journey to the manger, I find myself yelling at the top of my lungs,

Come down.

Rend the heavens.

Rend the heavens.

Rend the heavens.