A Pregnant Season

This is not going to be one of those sappy Christmas posts. In fact, I'm not entirely certain that I will be able to communicate the "epiphany" I had on the bus this afternoon. Maybe it was something just for me, for me and God, but it had me wishing for a pen and journal (of all the times to leave a journal at home in favor of an extra textbook...) so I thought I'd give a stab at writing it here for you.

I don't really remember what I was thinking about, probably the things I jotted in my previous post this afternoon, just before heading out to catch the bus and go to school to write an exam. But suddenly, as I watched the city lights twinkle against the sky, I was hit by an understanding of the advent season that is new to me.

The church calendar is full of seasons of waiting. Advent and Lent being two of the more well-known of these seasons. They are seasons that are pregnant - bursting with the promise of something important, something new. And that is what hit me. That these seasons are pregnant - that they have meaning because of their culminating event. Advent culminates in the birth of a savior, Lent in the resurrection of that same savior.

I have felt this sense of pregnancy, of urgency, of coming newness in my life this last while. I was feeling it particularly today, as I realized that I am within hours of completing the major goal of gaining a university education, and as I reflected on "mothering". I have this sense of growing newness, of something waiting to be birthed, to spring forth and amaze me. And I am annoyed that I cannot put my finger on it directly, that I cannot find words to share properly this realization of the advent season. But I am thrilled, for it promises to be something beautiful and new.

I am waiting with baited breath. Twelve hours from now I will have officially completed the requirements of my program. I will be the owner of a bachelor's degree. I don't think that moment, tomorrow morning, will be any sort of birthing - although it will be ecstatic. But that moment in the morning is only the beginning - I expect eagerly that new things will be brought to life, to light in me and in my life, and I am waiting with expectancy and what is becoming joy.