I handle to roll off the bed only a tad sooner than regular. I stumble down the steps, collapse into an important, leathery chair, and pull out my pile of religious studying. I shut my eyes, absorb a deep breath, bless myself, and…
I hear the scampering ft of my two little ladies as they tumble out of their very own beds and stroll into the hallway and down the steps.
“It’s not time to return downstairs but,” I growl. “You must nonetheless be asleep.”
“I’ve to go to the toilet,” one insists.
“I’m hungry,” the opposite says. “So hungry.”
I purse my lips collectively, realizing that any probability at contemplative silence is lengthy gone. I’m not going to listen to the top of my youngest’s insupportable starvation till she’s chowed by means of no less than a bowl of cereal.
“Superb,” I say, making a giant present of placing my books again on the shelf. I’ll pray tomorrow.
Some mixture of those core components derails most days of morning prayer—that’s, except I actually creep downstairs in these earliest of hours. I normally don’t, although, and so discover the Holy Spirit’s whisper shortly drowned out by questions concerning the college lunch menu and whether or not or not out of doors recess is within the playing cards for the day.
I’m of two minds on the matter. On the one hand, I actually ought to get up earlier. If I would like time to be alone with God, then I’ve to stand up and make that point. It’s my very own fault for sleeping in. However then a sense of failure seeps in, a way that I’m disappointing God and, properly, that’s not the God I imagine in. That’s not the God who is continually delighting.
Alternatively, I feel these rampaging kids working roughshod over my prayer are maybe half of that prayer. God could be saying one thing to me by sending these little messengers to interrupt my peace and false sense of management.
The query then turns into: How do I reply?
Properly, most days, irritably. You must nonetheless be asleep. I’m making an attempt to hope. Can’t you give me somewhat peace and quiet? You’ll be able to wait one other ten minutes for cereal, can’t you? And so forth.
I’ll wager these aren’t the charitable responses with which God hopes I greet my kids. And so, I’m given an opportunity to attempt once more day after day.
All through Introduction, we await the beginning of the Christ Little one. We’ve sanitized the occasion and the imagery. It’s a silent evening, proper? Every thing seems to be clear and tidy, even for a barn stuffed with animals! Any of us who has spent greater than ten minutes within the presence of a kid is aware of that such quiet tidiness is an phantasm.
I return to these two little ladies barreling across the nook and bursting the bubble of my sanitized prayer area. They arrive with questions, with wants, with tales, and with a need to attract intimately close to.
Does God need me to stay in that silent nook holding the noise of these kids at arm’s size? Or does God need me to be taught one thing from a toddler who interrupts?
That’s what we rejoice at Christmas: the interruption of a kid. The shattering of the establishment. An invite to see issues anew, to ask questions, and to attract close to to others.
How will we let the Christ Little one break into our meticulously maintained religious bubbles this yr? And may we see that bursting as a continuation of the prayer we’ve already begun?