Christmas is hard

At Christmas we encounter a lot of "shoulds" and disappointments. This is one of the reasons the idea of Advent is so powerful to me. The church calendar includes a 4-week period of longing. While the world around us hosts Christmas parties and celebrates the season, the church steps into a season where all we have is our desire that things were different.Advent speaks to our longing. It gives room to be in the darkness. It gives us a season to grieve that things don’t seem to be as they shou...