Routine

I willingly admit I am a creature of habit – partially because I am lazy and if I do things in a specific order, I don’t forget things. But also there is a certain comfort to organizing my self and my life in a predictable pattern. If, however, my routine is changed or interrupted, I am able to make accommodations and adapt to deal with the situation.  Such as been the situation for the past 10 days.

It has been a real blessing to me to be able to take care of my sister during her health crisis and tend to my niece while my sister is recovering.  I’ve had a unique and strange opportunity to be a part of their daily life that I don’t experience when we visit for vacation or holidays.  It’s the mundane things like getting up for school, making sure homework is done and there is food for lunches – and all other meals! – and going to basketball games and doctors’ appointments. We even got some things done to get ready for Christmas, just so my sister doesn’t have to worry about it after I return home.  Basically, I have become “Mom” for the past 10 days.  It is a different experience, a different routine, and fortunately we have all survived. 

To a certain extent, I’ve had the strange opportunity to walk in my sister’s shoes for a short period of time, and it has renewed my respect and admiration for all parents, especially single parents.  There is so much to remember and anticipate, so much to worry about and hope for. It can be exhausting – and so rewarding.

I thank the community of St. Barnabas for understanding my need to be here for my sister and niece during this time.  It has been a true gift for many reasons, but mostly to help support MY support system.  My sister’s illness disrupted my routine, but that is the reality of life.  We do not know the time or the hour something like this might occur and we shouldn’t be complacent enough to imagine it won’t happen. Fortunately, this situation was fairly easy to deal with, even if it came during a very busy season (but, then again, their all busy!).

These events have offered me a different way to experience Advent. In some ways the waiting is much more real – waiting for the surgery to be over, waiting for my sister to be released from the hospital, waiting for school to get out, waiting for the doctor’s appointment.  Usually I find these tasks to be tedious and annoying, “wasting” time.  But that is what I am here for – to wait and be prepared for what might be asked of me.

How has your waiting in this Advent season affected you?  Have you had to waiting in line at a checkout?  Was that frustration or an opportunity to offer a prayer of thanksgiving for what you were buying? Did you have to wait in a traffic?  Did you take a moment to think about where you were going and how that was a blessing?  Did the snow make you stop for a moment?  Did you enjoy its simple beauty even if was inconvenient?

Waiting offers us the time to reflect of how Christ finds us. If you’re like me, I’m bent in some places, broken in others, and always in need of my Savior.  And that fills me with great joy.  I am grateful for this time of waiting because I am more ready to celebrate the arrival of Christ than I have been in many years.

We still have more waiting to do (there is a plane I have to wait on tomorrow!), and I hope it will allow all of us some time to continue to live into the Advent season.  Let us all continue to prepare the way of the Lord into our hearts, bodies, souls and minds, which should never just be routine.

In Christ,

Rev. Valerie+