Surrendering Our Expectations...

After discovering we were expecting twins I created a fantasy of what Christmas 2009 would look like. I imagined Marcus and I dressed for church, each holding one of our babies contently in our arms, (and of course they would be dressed in coordinating outfits). The candlelight singing of silent night would bring the evening to a close. What I imagined was absolute perfection, a perfect first Christmas as a family of four.

The reality was slightly different. The babies were 7 months old at the time and the service was past bedtime, both were restless, both had dirty diapers which required me to leave the sanctuary on multiple occasions to change them, and I stood in the back bouncing a baby for the better part of the evening trying to keep them quiet. Emerson also decided that she wanted to entertain those sitting around us by making faces, blowing spit bubbles and sticking out her tongue. And holding a lit candle with babies who like to grab at everything not such a smart idea, in fact it is an incredibly bad idea. Yet, despite my reality being so different than what I envisioned I was content.

No, it wasn't the perfect evening I had envisioned the year before, not even close.  However, throughout our three year battle with infertility, while waiting and praying for our family, we learned that in life things often do not go exactly as planned or expected.

Our own Christmas narrative teaches us this. Mary, young, unwed and unexpectedly pregnant, required to travel on a donkey hugely pregnant, to ultimately deliver Jesus, the Christ child, in a cave surrounded by animals. I am certain none of which Mary or Joseph anticipated, envisioned or expected.

Advent is the season of hopeful anticipation; a time to reflect on the arrival of an unexpected messiah whose birth would change and transform our world. My own wait, struggle, and anticipation for a family, and the chaos of life with twins that ensued, is a reminder that we sometimes must surrender our expectations to God as Mary and Joseph did so long ago.

Merry Christmas 2010.