Advent and the heart of a mother

Christmas decorations, songs and lights fill the landscapes around us. Maybe if we’re lucky, cookies fill our belly, too. We wait for the one magical day marked by a visit from Santa, and most importantly, the celebration of the birth of Christ. Yet while we wait, we are already celebrating Christmas. Advent is a time of waiting, a time of hope looking forward, and simultaneously celebrating what already is and has been. Advent means “the coming or arrival of something or someone that is important or worthy of note.” It is ‘already’ (arrival) and ‘not yet’ (coming).

Many people can identify with this, from waiting for a package until its arrival, or when you travel, in the space before the wheels of the plane land at your destination. Builders and carpenters know this feeling. They start with a plan for a building or a piece of furniture which exists first only in their mind’s eye, long before it appears. Already and not yet. Parents know it this, too. We know what it is to have a child stand before you, to see all at once the baby that they once were, the adult they might yet be, and who they are exactly right now- the length of their arms and the shape of their beloved face. Past present and future. Already, unfolding and not yet.

But perhaps it is something that mothers can understand, most of all.

The hope of advent was born in Mary the moment that her heart decided that it could be. And it lived there long before anyone knew about it, or certainly knew what was to come. It was and was not yet, all together.

Mothers cannot only imagine what it felt like to be Mary, pregnant and waiting, we have done it too. None of of us have birthed a savior, by any means, but we understand what it means to hold space for something unseen, to bear both a promise and a child at the same time. We know what it is to be in the waiting and the celebrating.

It’s not easy, this waiting, not by any means. You stretch and grow unfathomably, to sustain the baby and hold the weight of it. While everyone waits, you alone carry. Every time you walk up the stairs, bend down to put on your shoes, or attempt to clothe both you and the promise, you remember what it costs, this waiting. Your body and soul bears the weight of its becoming.

Ironically, though, motherhood is not defined by one birth or one bearing. It is a thousands births, all of them painful, as you watch your children grow and be reborn, right before your very eyes. Not one of these births is alike, except for the way they explode in your heart.

I think this is exactly what God meant when he inspired man to write the words about Mary “she pondered these things in her heart.” Mary was experiencing the heart wrench of motherhood. Of holding both past, present, and future together inside one singular beating heart.

It was in the moments between the angel telling her that she’d bear the son, to his actual coming. When the shepherds came and they all looked upon the baby-his lips, his downy hair, his tiny fingers- and they could hardly grasp what it meant. It was in the space between his birth and his resurrection. Between his sleepless nights and little boy wanderings. When he outgrew his mother and began to look like the man we imagine.

Things change, babies grow, and yet we somehow hold them all in our hearts simultaneously. It is in fact, one of the miracles of Motherhood, the one in common with the miracle of Christmas. For one heart to hold both promise and heartbreak, hope and longing, present and past, future and family. We bask in the weight of the glory that was held, for a time, in a tiny human container that could fit in the crook of an arm.

It’s enough to make someone cry.

The other day I did something that I try not to do too. I looked back at pictures of my kids from three years ago this week, and of course, I cried. The tiny faces and smaller little bodies put a lump in my throat and an ache in my heart. I could practically smell that baby head and feel it’s downy softness tucked under my chin as I carried it. I held back most of the tears but there were enough for that now three and a half year old baby to notice. I looked from the image of him to the very presence of him before me. I loved them both equally, felt like I held them both in my minds eye at the same time. My son noticed the tears. “God bless you mommy. And God bless you when I was a baby too.” The word blessing shot back through time and space, like an impossible arrow hitting its impossible target. As if they really do exist all at once.

We begin the Advent season with preparing and we spend this time in hopeful expectation. Yet know that he already is come. Jesus who was, and is, and is to come. Our hearts hold the three things in somewhat equal measure- all true, even if they seem dueling. Past, present, and future, bound together. It is waiting and hold the weight of what is and what is yet to be. Longing and expectation, some promises already realized, holding both seen and unseen, all exactly at the same time.

Motherhood and advent are alike in this: it is a holding all of multiple things at once. Future hope and past moments, all while experiencing the joy and struggle of the current hours. It is sometimes an act of courage to not be swept away in sentimentality. It is also an act of courage to walk forward into the future, holding hands and too knowing you’ll someday let go. It’s living squarely, decidedly, in the moment that’s before you.

It’s in the heart of a mother. It’s in the heart of a parent. It’s the heart of a builder. It’s the miracle of Christmas.
Love come down from heaven, all around us, breath, skin, and bones, Already and Not Yet.