A Mother's Love

I am greatly missing Sammie at the moment. As she is currently in foster care, I am only able to see her for 2 hours a week. Although I value every moment I can have with her, it does mean that in many ways I feel I do not know her as I used to. It is a strange feeling of loss - Sammie is still well and alive, but I have very little input into her life. There is one thing that will always remain though, and that is my love for Sammie.

Mary knew what it was like to lose a child. Because of this, I feel a connection with her. Losing Sammie to foster care and possibly adoption is not the same as what happened to Jesus, but it still hurts. Also, I take comfort in Mary also being both mine and Sammie's mother. There are many things I talk to her about- mostly about Sammie and what things are going on with her. Knowing she is there and that she loves me brings comfort while I go through this scary time.

I love Sammie more than anyone else on Earth, and would do anything for her. I hope to have her back soon, but if not, with the help of both God and Mary I will be able to cope. Soon will be the celebration of both Jesus' and Sammie's birth (she was born on 26th December) and I hope that I will be able to celebrate both of these days with her. If not, I just hope Sammie knows that whatever happens, I love her as only a mother can.

Advent: Hunting for God and Company

[This entry was written by our first guest (and non-Christian) blogger, who would like to be known as Watering Can.]

Advent means waiting for something to come. Now there’s a thought. What can we possibly be waiting for? God, perhaps?

Is God...
a) Already here and will always be here
b) About to come...we’re still waiting for Him
c) Here but we’re remembering how we waited for Him...re-waiting
d) Up there, down here, everywhere, watching our every move and we are waiting for Him to somehow intervene for us?
e) Waiting for Him to come again i.e. at the end of the world
f) Inside us, so we’re waiting to discover Him (but then is He hiding from us?)
g) Not here at all.

Am I waiting for your answer? Are you even paying attention? I might not be, if I were reading this. I know just what I’d be waiting for...Christmas presents, pocket money, maybe a new and inspirational idea, some event I’d be looking forward to or for all of the homework to end so I could take a breather. No, I’m not waiting for your answer because it may or may not have been a rhetorical question. Your business, so you can do what you like with your answer. Though it might be an idea to think about the meaning behind what it was. Maybe it’s linked to your religion, or maybe you have a completely different answer.

But I’m straying from the point. Advent. What do you think of when you hear that word? I always think of advent calendars. Arguably, that answer is justified because they’re everywhere, with their chocolate or traditional goodness, rearing their animated, colourful, rectangular heads a good month before they should really be there. If you believe in Jesus, then you’ll probably agree that He/he did not come down in September, October or early November. I’m guessing here when I say Advent is a month where you’re supposed to think about stuff before Christmas (no, not making your Christmas lists, though you’ll be doing that too unless you want to be dashing around as soon as the 20th December comes around) but about a lot of other things.

So, Jesus is coming! You’ve got a month. What are you going to do?! Perhaps for some it will be like an inspection. So then you’ll be cleaning yourself up, tidying your room, being especially nice to everyone, maybe getting your gold necklace ready to give up, thinking about how it is more blessed to give than receive and anything else that makes you look like someone who should definitely go on the good list. Maybe we’re not doing that, but we’re thinking. First of all, it will be a reminder: “Hello there! Jesus came down this time years and years ago. He’s there, watching you.” How does that make you feel? Afraid? Composed? If you’re a sinner then you know no one’s going to throw stones at you. But a few gentle words in your ear might make you feel just as bad.

So we’re waiting for Jesus. We’ve got bright, flashing lights on our Christmas trees, we might have some Santa ideas floating around (who is Father Christmas anyway? How come he didn’t have a Gospel?!), we’ve got nativity scenes up, we might have a couple of angels flexing their wings around the house, not to mention a few paper chains or snow globes. Everything certainly looks very pretty. We’d get top marks for the state of our houses. But what about ourselves? Indeed, how have we been behaving all year long? Have we been naughty or nice? Both. It’s not as if we’re going to have a tutorial with Jesus (unless we are great at prayer) but it makes us wonder about ourselves at least. This was the day that Jesus came down supposedly to bear all of our sins for us – as a little, innocent baby born in a stable who had an appointment with three intelligent kings bearing gifts they’ve lugged all the way from wherever they came from in pursuit of a star that showed us the light of the world. Did He/he know then that he was going to be bleeding on a cross wearing a thorn crown in front of a crowd of people? Was He/he lingering in an agonising wait for his fate or to return to His/his Father?

Of course we should celebrate His/his birthday! He’s the big saviour, after all. Now there’s another thought. How do you find a present appropriate for Jesus Christ? What do I think? Give Him/him your time. It’s the best thing you’ve got. What is Jesus going to do with a pair of socks or a bunch of chocolate coins? So is that it? Is He/he waiting for you as much as you are waiting for Him/him? What did the beginning of His/his life on Earth actually mean? As far as I can see, time for Him/him to grow up, get to know us, start teacher-preacher training and having the opportunity to talk to us as a man. As far as prophecies are concerned, we were all waiting for the Messiah. And some of us reckon we got Him.

Yet, is waiting really something we should celebrate?! Those torturing moments where something good is in front of us and we can’t get it yet. It’s not in the league of want-it-can’t-have-it but it’s still at least annoying. But it is something to celebrate. It’s knowing that the thing is there that counts. Just knowing that there is something very good ahead of us gives us the motivation to carry on. It makes a certain, amazing, formula of excitement. It makes us happy. Waiting can be the best time ever, and the best thing is that it builds. Every second is one second closer to the incentive. So Christmas Eve and morning are going to be the most exhilarating. The bad news is that it crashes out after whatever-it-is has happened. We should make the most of it. So – guess what – we’ve got Advent where we can wait to our heart’s content.

There are two things that might go wrong though. After it’s all over and Jesus has arrived in all His/his glory...the words ‘now what?’ hang in the air unspoken, like deflated balloons or the empty packet of sweets. What we forget is that Jesus is not a toy and He/he is not going to run out of batteries. Nor, if you believe in Him/him, will he get any less fun. So let’s think about Who/who exactly we’re waiting for and what you can do with Him/him.

So it’s about getting ready to be a Christian. This is the guy you’ll be following for the rest of your life. Taking up your cross and following Him/him. (Aren’t you thinking by now that this is a bit miserable for an Advent blog? I know it is. I eased you in with the festive stuff and the Christmas euphoria but now we’re getting spiritual now.) You know there’s all this stuff about searching so hard for God that you forget to knock at His door. Is this the best approach to take? Is sincere prayer the way to go? Probably. You could do little things like lighting a candle or saying your own prayer (I don’t know what you believe about Jesus but considering that you washed up here then you’re interested – I know some religions accept Jesus and some don’t but whatever) or you could just look at various Advent traditions. I’m not here to talk about them because I don’t know any but you could make up your own or just spend five minutes thinking about what this season actually means.

Or we could take a personal look at it. What are you waiting for? Yes, you. Anything non-materialistic will do, because it’s just about thinking for the minute. What is it about it that makes it attractive? Have you been waiting a long time? Is it difficult to find? Is it an element you don’t feel you’ve really explored or given enough time to think about? Is it something you want that someone else has already found the secret to? Or do you have no idea what you’re waiting for? Peace? Love? Spiritual fulfilment? A sense of belonging? Some idea of worth? A place to escape? Comfort? A new idea or ambition?What does this season mean to you, if anything? What are you waiting for? Get up and go.

About us

Advent is a sacred time in the traditional Christian calendar, a time to prepare for the coming of the Living God at Christmas. 'Preparation' in today's context usually means shopping and gift-wrapping and organising parties - a hectic lifestyle that has nothing to do with the Christian festival marking the birth of the Prince of Peace. Awake the Dawn is a place apart from the stress and worry and consumerism. It is a search for God's face.

The five principal bloggers are all young women with disabilities. (Between us we have autism, dyspraxia, dyslexia, a neurological condition that causes chronic pain, and a colourful variety of mental health difficulties.) One of us is a single mother. Two and a half of us are Catholics. (Two people are in the process of converting, and as they're only a quarter of the way there they count as a half-Catholic when added together.) One of us is a Quaker. Another was raised in a fundamentalist Christian household and somebody else used to live as a Muslim. One person is a former atheist. We all have very different ideas, interests, and outlooks on life, and in reflection of that we have each chosen a different theme to write about for Awake the Dawn.

May God bless you as you wait for the sunrise with us.

Danni
Danni accidentally became a Christian when she was eighteen. She went to a carol service for the sake of the music and walked out feeling a strange urge to go back, which she now realises was a strategic move on the part of Jesus. By Easter she knew that she believed in Him. Danni has struggled with mental health difficulties for most of her life, and at the moment she is living in sheltered accommodation while her three-year-old daughter Samantha is cared for by foster parents. For a while it looked very likely that Sammie would be put up for adoption, and Sammie is the only family that Danni has. Mostly because of this, Danni has a deep love for Mary, the mother of Jesus, who knew what it was like to lose a child. Unsurprisingly, Danni is going to write about Mary for Awake the Dawn. (She is not feeling that well today, which is why this short bio has been written on her behalf by Stella Maris.)


Dominus Illuminatio Mea
D is a nineteen-year-old student of Classics and Spanish at Oxford University, who is taking a year out because of her health. She is the (legitimate!) daughter of a Catholic priest, which is always a good line of introduction at parties. Despite being medically diagnosed as barren, her mother conceived after praying and drinking water from the healing well at Walsingham. D is the eldest of six children, one of whom cherishes ambitions to become either 'the pope or an old man in the park with a stick'. She will be writing about the three wise men who travelled from Persia to worship the newborn Jesus.


Pagmie
Hello. I am Miranda, but my posts will be appearing under the name of my Google blog. I am F/16/UK, or just, 16 year old girl living in the UK. I got asked to write for Awake the Dawn as I am a Quaker, and hence have a different view, and I jumped at the chance. I have a long and complex history that I don't plan to go into, but I am prepared to say that I am a relatively radical Quaker. My four posts will be on obedience and respect, women's rights, the Jewish festival of Purim, and finally a Quaker view on these things - all based around the Book of Esther. I chose this book as it concentrates on hope and waiting, like Advent itself.


Pebles
Hello. How are you? I am 22 years old. I like patterns and maths and pigeons and trains and lots of things. I have dyspraxia, dyslexia, and autism. My favourite saints are St Bernadette, St Therese of Lisieux, St Maximilian Kolbe, St Francis of Assisi and St Miriam. I was baptized in the sea. It was late at night and the water was cold. I liked the water being cold. I remember the water and all the patterns that it made and the stars and I remember closing my eyes so that all of the brilliant things around me would not distract me. I wanted to think of God. I remember pressure on my shoulders and back and being pushed under the water. I remember how the water felt all around me and I remember coming back up out of it. I remember smiling like when something very brilliant happens like when my niece Summer was born. I remember that I felt the way you feel when you take a heavy bag off your back, but it was in my chest where it felt like the bag had been taken from. I am a Catholic Christian. I am going to write about searching for God.


Stella Maris
"Make straight in the desert a highway for our God." This verse from the Bible has inspired me to write about preparing for the divine coming, starting with conversion of the heart and moving on to questions of social justice, especially poverty and peace. I grew up in Saudi Arabia and have travelled widely in the Middle East, visiting Bahrain, Israel-Palestine, Egypt, and Jordan. (Next stop: Yemen.) My immersion in that melting-pot of languages, cultures, and religions flavours practically everything that I write - and I write a lot, ranging from books on my disabilities to nativity plays involving hippie kibbutzniks. (Do not ask.) I hope to become a nun once I have finished with university, assuming that I can find a convent willing to accommodate my two thousand books. (Yes, I really do have that number, and no, a vow of holy poverty should not stand in the way of me and my bookshelves.)


Guest Bloggers
From time to time a special guest blogger may step in. The proposed guest list features a Jew, an Evangelical Christian, and - more exotic still - an American. Stay tuned.