Advent – The Savior Will Come

Advent – The Savior Will Come

by | Nov 30, 2023 | Holiday History, Holidays, Thoughtful Thursdays

Do you observe the season of Advent?

I grew up in a United Methodist church, which lights the candles on the Advent wreath every year; when we planted our own church in the Seventh Day Baptist denomination, my family kept that tradition. And now that my immediate family is Catholic, Advent isn’t just a part of our year, it’s the start of the Christian calendar. Advent, in this oldest tradition, is more than just four candles. It’s four weeks of preparing our hearts for the coming of the Savior anew. Of yearning for Him. Of longing for Him.

As my Patrons & Peers group celebrated Christmas together for the first time last year, discussion round about the end of November/ beginning of December touched on Advent…and the fact that at least half our members are only vaguely familiar with the tradition, since their churches don’t observe it. Which made me think that the same percentage is probably true of my general readership. So then, it sounded like fun to take some time to talk about what Advent is and why it’s become part of the Church calendar.

When Does Advent Begin?

Advent begins four Sundays before Christmas. Much like Lent is 40 days, a Biblical significant number meant to mimic the time Jesus spent in the wilderness, Advent used to be 40 days as well, to encompass the “fullness” of history before Christ’s appearance on the scene. In the 9th century, that time was condensed to four weeks, and the Four Sundays of Advent began to be observed as we still see them now.

In traditional services, Advent, much like Lent, is a season of repentance and somberness. Celebratory songs like the “Gloria” are taken from the liturgy. The alter and vestments are clothed in purple cloth, because purple is the traditional color of repentance and penitence. Scripture readings during these four weeks focus not on Christmas, but on the state of the world before Christ came, and on John the Baptist preparing the way for Him–because Christmas and Easter have always been so closely linked in the Church that you don’t even try to separate one from the other. Christ was born for one purpose: to save us through His death. This is why we both celebrate and mourn. We celebrate because He loves us so much.

We mourn because our own sinful natures required this sacrifice of our Lord.

What Do the Four Weeks of Advent Represent?

As we focus on the state of the world so desperate for a Savior–a state our world is always in–we look too toward how good our God is to meet us as He’s done. And we recognize that we are the world before Christ. We are sinful. We are selfish. We have wronged God. We have disappointed him. We have hurt our neighbors. We have failed to be what He made us to be. We have chosen, again and again, our own way above His. Our own hearts, certainly before we accepted the salvation offered by Him but even now in some degree, are hard and barren.

And yet He not only came down to walk among us, He prepared the very world for His arrival with such care. He came at the perfect time in history. And His coming restarted history. It created a new era, a new epoch. This is why the traditional Church calendar begins with the anticipation of Christmas.

The first week of advent, marked by purple, is the week of Hope. From the earliest writings of the Old Testament, we see the faithful servants of God hoping for His salvation, whether in the very physical realm–hope that He’ll deliver them from oppression–to the purely spiritual sense. This hope, when the world is at its darkest, is one of the most amazing marks of faith. Faith hopes when logic says we shouldn’t. Faith hopes when all seems lost. Faith hopes, knowing that even if it seems like we’ve lost, we haven’t, because there is a world beyond what we perceive. This first week of Advent, we celebrate the Hope that Christ represents to the world…hope that we need because the world is otherwise so hopeless. We recognize that without Him, we are irrevocably separated from God, but we cling to the Hope of Reconciliation that He represents. Living as we do in the 21st century, we obviously know He has come already…but it’s still so important to reflect on what that hope means, for us and for all of mankind throughout all of history.

Because at some point in our lives, He hadn’t yet come to us…or rather, we hadn’t yet turned to Him. For us, as for every Christian before us, we need to experience our own Advent of Christ, His coming into our hearts. Remembering that coming every year, remembering that hope, keeps it fresh and new and beautiful.

The second week of advent, also marked by purple, is the week of peace. In Isaiah’s prophecy of a Messiah, he calls Christ the “prince of peace.” In an age where power and royalty were only ever achieved through war, this would have seemed like a strange thing. A prince could only be one of peace if he was born into an established kingdom strong enough that it didn’t need to fight. David, we know, was a king of war, and Solomon of peace…and that was when God permitted the Temple to be built, by hands not stained by blood.

Christ, however, entered into a world of strife. The peace between Israel and the Greeks and Romans had been won through political maneuvering in the centuries preceding His arrival, but it had cracked and broken. Israel was occupied by Romans. Israel was restless and ready for a Savior to lead them out of bondage. Israel wanted a king like the ones of old, that would lead them from captivity by crushing their enemy.

Instead we get a Savior who comes not to offer this shaky peace to a nation, but to offer something no king ever dared to promise before–peace of the spirit. Peace of the soul. Peace not between men and kingdoms, but between each person and God. This is a peace no mortal man can offer, but what we all long for at the most primal level. Why do we war with each other? Because part of us in rebellion against God. If we were perfectly aligned with Him, all of us, then we would be at perfect peace together too. This is the kingdom of which Christ is the Prince of Peace. Not a kingdom of earth, but the Kingdom of God. And that Kingdom began the moment He was born, was anticipated for hundreds of years before His arrival, and still reigns today.

The third week of advent, marked by pink, is the week of joy. Do you have children? Do you remember how, when your abdomen grows large and you feel the baby moving around in there, you have those moments when fear and discomfort and uncertainty are forgotten, and you just marvel at the life within? Do you remember those bubbles of joy that come surging up?

This is the joy of all of creation at the coming of our Lord. Scripture tells us that all of creation yearned and groaned like a women in childbirth, ready for the coming of the Savior. We know the joy that all of heaven and earth proclaimed at His birth, but that joy didn’t start there. The joy begins in the expectation.

Because faith, the knowing that God will make a way, breeds not only peace as we trust Him, but joy in the knowing.

We know that God yearns for us as we yearn for Him. We know that He has made a way back into His arms. We know that when we view the world through His eyes, we’ll see not just what’s broken but what He will heal.

We may still be unhappy here in this world. We may be persecuted. We may be neglected. We may be hated. We may be misunderstood. But when we truly trust in God and let His peace reign in our hearts, joy follows. A joy that we remember and anticipate anew as we draw ever nearer to the celebration of Christ’s arrival. Because He is the ultimate joy.

The fourth week of advent, marked again by purple, is the week of love. Why would God do this for us? Why would Christ leave His heavenly abode? Why would He not only become human, but become human in the most helpless of ways, coming as a newborn baby? He could have been formed like Adam, full grown. But instead, He put Himself in the arms of a human woman. He entrusted His life to the protection of a human man. He became fully part of the human family.

Because He loves us. He loves us so much that He agreed to let His divine radiance be swaddled in eight pounds of human flesh and blood and bone. He loves us so much that He set aside immortality so that He could die for us. Save us. Love us in the fullest of ways, by giving Himself totally for us. And that started not when He died, but when He first let His being be planted in His mother’s womb. He started, as we all do, as mere cells. A God more vast than the universe, shrunken down to such a size! Only love would inspire that. The most perfect love.

What About Advent Wreaths?

The traditional Advent wreath has four candles in it, which mirror the liturgical colors of each week: purple, purple, pink, and purple. Sometimes a white candle will be situated in the middle and lit on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day, which is called the Christ candle.

In addition to hope, peace, joy, and love, each candle has an additional reminder. The week of hope, we call it the Prophecy Candle, because those prophecies are what assure us that we have hope of One to come. The week of peace, we call it the Bethlehem candle, to remember the small hamlet in which Christ chose to be born–not a capital won by war, but a tiny little town about family, not royalty. The week of joy, we call it the Shepherd’s Candle to recall not only the shepherds there to receive that blessed news of His coming, but how He is our shepherd, just as Moses was shepherd for Israel so long ago too, as David was, as so many others were. The fourth candle is then the Angel Candle, because they are the messengers who proclaimed Him every step of the way, from conception to His triumphant birth, from ministering in the garden to proclaiming His resurrection.

Why Advent?

In a world that begins celebrating Christmas so early, moderns might wonder, “Why even bother with Advent? We’re already focused on Christmas!”

We are, yes. And yes, the world needs all the joy it can get. But one could argue that you can’t understand the celebration if you don’t focus on what led to it. One can’t fully appreciate the hope and peace and joy and love if one doesn’t pause to consider how much we NEED those things, even today. Only when we pause to recognize that we are still, even now, even as Christians, so desperately yearning for Him can we appreciate what His coming truly means.

I think the thing I love most about the Church calendar is that it isn’t about the past. It’s about living it out now, every year. Not just remembering what came before, but becoming a part of it.

In these next four weeks, we aren’t just resting in the knowledge that Jesus came to earth and was born in a stable. We are reliving the centuries leading up to His arrival. We are anticipating it for ourselves. We are pausing to recognize how much we still need Him. How He is our hope. He is our peace. He is our joy. He is our love.

In four weeks, we’ll set aside the sober reflections. We’ll hopefully have examined our hearts and laid them bare before God, just as His people have always needed to do when we want to draw near to Him. We should have removed what stands between us, confessed it and renounced it. We should then come, pure as that newborn, to Bethlehem’s stable. We should kneel before this Prince of Peace with the full measure of awe.

Then, my friends, we celebrate Christmas. Then we sing that “Gloria” again, just as the angels sang it to the shepherds. Then we’re ready for the Christmas season, which begins when He was born and stretches out long past when the world tucks it all into boxes again and moves on.

We’re still celebrating. Because Christ’s coming is one to be anticipated. And it’s one to then be upheld with every joyful celebration we can dream up.

Questions Unite, Answers Divide

Questions Unite, Answers Divide

by | Nov 16, 2023 | Thoughtful Thursdays

“Questions Unite, Answers Divide.” This was a line that really stuck out to us as we listened to a podcast called The Art of Accomplishment. The hosts were talking about building community–building real community, the kind that mourns with each other and rejoices with each other and accepts responsibility for the lives of each other. They were talking about the kind of community that says, “If you’re failing, then it’s because I’ve failed you.” And in that kind of community, that truth has proven itself.

Let’s ponder it for a moment, shall we?

Sometimes,  yes, we don’t even agree on what the questions should be, on which ones are important to talk about. There were certainly times in my college conversations where people would interject, “Yes, but how can we even know if we’re real?” into every single subject, and we’d just have to say, “You’re asking the wrong question.” But most of the time, in life (if not in philosophy), we can at least agree on what questions are important.

How do we help those who feel outcast in their own skin?
How do we support single women who just found out they’re pregnant and are terrified?
What can we do about the rampant drug abuse in our streets?
Why is violence so out of control?
How can we shape our kids into responsible adults?
How can we show people we love them?
How can I be successful?

These are just a few examples, of course, but they are examples that are at the heart of most of the contention in political arenas, family arguments, and even workplace rivalries. And it doesn’t take much imagination to realize why the answers to them divide, right? Because one side might say, “We need to make sure those people can just CHOOSE their gender,” while the other says, “They just need to get COMFORTABLE with who God made them to be.”

The answers divide us. But they don’t have to…because we don’t have to try to offer solutions. We can just sit in the question. What would that look like?

Something like this. “Wow, you’re right. There are so many people who hate who they were born and want to be someone new.” Then instead of jumping to “answers,” we could instead say, “Why do you think that is?” We could talk about the root of it, the heart of it. We could have opinions, sure, but we could approach the conversation impartially. Because you know what? Rarely is there one answer. And rarely does our opinion actually do anything but hurt people. Rarely do we help by offering a “fix,” an “answer.” All we ever do is push people away.

“There’s no such thing as winning an argument,” Dale Carnegie observed (I’m probably paraphrasing) in How to Win Friends and Influence People. “Once you’ve started arguing, you’ve already lost.”

But what we can do is have conversations. We can just ask questions–not questions designed to push an agenda, but questions rooted in curiosity. In wonder. Instead of wanting to fix everything, we can just want to learn about it. We can get to the place where we can love–the person we’re talking to, and the people or situation we’re talking about.

We don’t have to avoid or shy away from subjects that can turn contentious. We can embrace them when we go in without an agenda. We can simply enjoy learning other views and perspectives. We can appreciate seeing things in ways we never have before. We can strive to understand why people come to different conclusions and (gasp) even entertain the notion that our own opinions could be wrong, in part or completely.

We’re entering a season of visits and travel, of activities and festivities. We’re entering a season where we’ll be spending a lot of hours around dining room tables or living rooms or office parties or church fellowship halls with people we love…but may not always know how to talk to about anything but surface things, for fear tension will intrude.

Let’s not avoid the hard subjects–but let’s not approach them as things that have definitive answers, either. Let’s leave our own opinions and agendas at the door, and let’s simply connect. Let’s let the questions unite us–because we all know they’re important–and refuse to let the answers divide. Let’s enter those conversations like The Art of Accomplishment encourages us to do, with what they call the VIEW mindset: with Vulnerability; with Impartiality; with Empathy; and with Wonder. If we can do that, then we’re going to leave those conversations knowing we’ve grown closer to the other people…and more, that we’ve grown. We, ourselves. We’ve grown, because we’ve ventured outside the walls of our own biases.

And that’s a freeing, festive place to be.

 

Sometimes We Forget

Sometimes We Forget

by | Nov 9, 2023 | Thoughtful Thursdays

The other day, my husband was reading my manuscript for Imposters 3, An Honorable Deception, before I turn it in. Now, he reads most of my books before I send them off to my editors, but he’s bowed out of the last couple for one reason or another, which means he hasn’t read anything of mine since Imposters 2, which I turned in back in March. We talk a lot about my writing, the edits that come in, the whole process, and David is without competition the one who does most to support my writing on a daily basis, reworking our lives around my deadlines.

So anyway. The other day I was back at my desk in Xoe’s room (okay, Xoe’s desk in Xoe’s room, but it’s mine until she comes home for Thanksgiving, LOL) working on a cover design. I heard him walking through the living room so knew he’d be coming my way and thought he’d poke his head in to share something he just saw on Facebook or even ask a question about something in the book, if he was actively reading. Instead, he just walked over to my chair and wrapped his arms around me and kissed the top of my head. I think I said something enlightened, like a laughing, “Hi?”

He held me tight a moment more and then said, “Sometimes I just forget what a great writer you are.”

I have no idea what part he’d just read that made him feel the need to walk the length of the house and tell me that, but it warmed me from the inside out. And that phrase just stuck with me. Sometimes I forget…

It stuck because it struck. It resonated. Because you know what? Sometimes we forget.

Sometimes we forget that the people we love aren’t just the people we love.
Sometimes we forget that our kids just need a listening ear.
Sometimes we forget that our friends struggle.
Sometimes we forget that the strangers that cut us off have lives that are weighing on them.
Sometimes we forget that God loves our rivals as much as He loves us.

Sometimes we forget that just because we think something, doesn’t make it right.
Sometimes we forget that we don’t have to fix everything.
Sometimes we forget that we’re the ones who shaped this modern world into what it is.
Sometimes we forget that we can have a conversation and it doesn’t even matter if we agree.
Sometimes we forget that Christ chose sinners as his dinner companions, not the righteous.

Sometimes we forget that suffering should draw us closer to Jesus.
Sometimes we forget that this hard place is necessary to bring us where He wants us.
Sometimes we forget that we actually have it really good.
Sometimes we forget that we can let go and say no.
Sometimes we forget that joy is a choice, not circumstantial.

Sometimes we forget that we are children of God.
Sometimes we forget that we are exactly who He made us to be.
Sometimes we forget that we still have to strive always after Him.
Sometimes we forget that He promised us trials.
Sometimes we forget that every action should be based in love, not getting our own way.

Sometimes, my friends, we forget. We forget who God really is. We forget who we really are. We forget that the people around us aren’t just our vision of them. We forget that our life’s story isn’t the only life story playing out. We forget that we’re called to be part of something bigger than our own concerns.

We all forget. But…we also all remember. We get those glimpses. Those reminders. Those pangs in the heart. And when they come, I pray we can all do exactly what my husband did. Put down whatever we’re doing. Take the journey, whether it’s a phone call or an email or a walk or a drive. Wrap our arms, physically or metaphorically, around someone. And just let them know, “I remember. I remember what a precious gift you are. I remember. And I love you.”

Drought

Drought

by | Sep 21, 2023 | Thoughtful Thursdays

When I was about eight, we went through a few dry years. One summer especially, it was declared an official drought…and I hated it. I live in the mountains of West Virginia, and those mountains are used to being green. Being rural, we had a well. Drought for us meant being very careful with and anxious over our water tables, being watchful of any sparks or fires, and praying God would send rain.

I was too young to know or care much about the bigger concerns. What I knew was that the lush green grass I loved running through barefoot was dry, brown, and pokey. Running barefoot through it held no appeal. What I knew was that our neighbors liked to burn trash, and fire was already terrifying to me after a rather large one consumed the hillside next to our house on my sixth birthday. What I knew was that this was NOT how my world was supposed to be.

I remember praying every night–every night–with all the earnestness of an eight-year-old that God would make the grass green again. I didn’t actually pray for rain. I prayed for green. Because that was what I saw. That was what I hated–the brown grass. And I knew God could make it green again…even without rain, right? Every night I would pray, and every morning, I would run out to the dining room window and look out, eager to see my miracle.

Every morning, I looked out that window and saw the same brown, scratchy, crunchy, hated grass.

Here’s the thing. I didn’t give up praying. I didn’t get angry. I just huffed a breath and thought, “Maybe tomorrow morning. I’ll just keep praying.”

Those memories have stuck with me for more than thirty years. Why? I think, looking back on it now, it’s not really because the drought itself scarred me for life or anything. It wasn’t because I realize, looking back, that I should have been praying for rain instead of green. I think that time has stuck with me, because Little Roseanna knew something Grown-Up Roseanna needs to remember.

We need to keep praying. Day in and day out. Disappointed or fulfilled. No matter how dry our souls feel. No matter how barren things look. Every day we’re left with a “no” or a “not yet,” we need to say, “Maybe tomorrow then. I’ll keep praying.”

As I ponder those days, I also remember something else.

I remember my phobia-level fear–terror–of fire. It was a real thing. In this day and age, I can imagine parents taking their kids to a counselor to talk through it. Because every night when I went to bed, I would tie my favorite teddy bear’s scarf around my wrist, so that if fire came and I had to jump out my window, I wouldn’t leave him behind. I would line up a few favorite things beside that same window, so I could grab them on my way out. I gathered all the matches I could find and soaked them in water, thinking they’d be destroyed forever and save me the worry of anyone making even the smallest fire in my house. Christmas Eve candlelight service? I was a wreck. I thought my long hair was sure to catch on fire and I wouldn’t hold my own candle.

Still, my neighbors, parents of my best friend, had a fire barrel. They would burn their trash rather than pay to have it picked up, and this…was…TERRIFYING to me. Especially because in that year of drought, one day the burning barrel blew over.

Fire. Fire was spreading through that dry kindling that used to be grass, and we were outside playing and saw it happen. Cue all the screaming. The rushing this way and that, having no idea what to do. My friend and I searched wildly for her father, certain the whole world was about to go up in flames…when he came sauntering calmly over with the hose and doused it in about three seconds. He’d been watching all along. He was prepared.

Then, in the next week or two, I noticed something strange.

The patch of grass that had burned grew back…green. I was startled. Amazed. In wonder. Surely that one dousing with the hose hadn’t accomplished that green, had it? Was it the single soaking of water or the fact that the dead grass was burned away?

I had no idea. But it taught me something I never would have anticipated.

Sometimes it takes destruction to bring new life. Sometimes my worst fears have to be realized in order to get the thing I long for.

After that, my best friend and I would joke about how we just needed to do controlled burns of all the grass to bring it back to life–a little match here, then a bucket of water to follow. We’d chase each other around the yard, pretending we were lighting and then quenching restorative flames.

Maybe, just maybe, that was when I started to heal from that phobia. Because of a drought that wouldn’t go away no matter how much I prayed.

I was remembering all of this because the last few weeks have been hot and dry here in the West Virginia mountains–not at all unusual for the last weeks of summer. The grass began to brown, and it would crunch under my feet when I walked through the yard. As it always does, that sound, that feel took me right back to that horrible summer of drought. Then we had a day of rain. One day, one good storm…and I walked outside the next day, and that crunchy grass was soft again. Green had overtaken the brown. Life had been restored.

One storm. One good soaking rain. Sometimes that’s all it takes.

I know many people in the country are suffering from severe drought right now of the natural variety–I have a lot of friends in Texas who are desperate for rain. How many more are suffering, all over the country and the world, from spiritual drought? How many get up every morning, hoping to feel life and hope only to be met with the same brown, crackling, prickly world?

I get it. I’ve been there, both spiritually and physically. But be encouraged, friends, by Little Roseanna and her insights. Keep praying–pray for relief, pray for healing for the root cause, pray for it all. But also know that sometimes, those droughts are there to heal us in the most unexpected ways. Sometimes, being stripped bare, down to the nub, parched of everything we thought we needed, we’re finally able to dig out the roots of fear, of bitterness, of shame, of regret, of hate. Sometimes we need those droughts so that the cleansing fire can get rid of the chaff and healing–life-giving, pure, clean, flowing healing–can finally do its work.

Droughts don’t last forever. Neither do floods. Life is always cyclical, with highs and lows, the dry and the soggy, the too-much and the not-enough. Faith doesn’t change any of that…it changes us and how we see it. It teaches us to see not the lack, but the opportunity. It teaches us to trust in our good and faithful Father, who is always watching, even when we don’t see Him there.

I will never like the feel of crunchy grass under my feet. But I will forever be grateful for what God taught me about Himself through my drought.

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Forks…and Sharing Dreams

Forks…and Sharing Dreams

by | Sep 7, 2023 | Thoughtful Thursdays

On August 21, we dropped our firstborn child off at college. Our college, the one David and I both attended. We drove into the lot we’d parked in a thousand times before. We walked her, our arms laden with her things, into the same dorm building I’d been in Freshman year. And then nostalgia really hit when we stopped at MY VERY DORM ROOM and her roommate welcomed us in.

Yep. MY ROOM. My daughter is in my same room! I hadn’t remembered the number, but there was no mistaking the door. Or the dark ink stain on the tile I failed at scrubbing off. Or the view from the window. (If only I’d carved my name into a board in the closet or hidden something behind some molding! What was I thinking?? LOL)

We got her situated, we attended the family reception, we chatted with the dean (who was a professor while we were there) and the assistant dean (who was our classmate!) and anyone else we recognized. Then we left her to settle in and we drove home and…here we are. Doing what parents have been doing for so long. Letting our baby spread her wings, in a place we know and love.

Being me, I find myself pondering when and why different realizations hit. For instance, do you know the moments I miss her most? It’s not at bedtime when she’s not there for family prayers–I can brace myself for that. It’s not in the morning when I no longer have to poke my head in to wake her up–I forgot to do that half the time anyway, when I was caught up in my own work.

It’s when I reach for a fork and, from habit, pass over her favorite one.

See, we have some mismatched silverwear, some of which was inherited from the grandfather whose house we now live in. When we moved in here, each of my kids picked a favorite fork. They were 5 and 8 when they did this. Xoe liked the one with the little stars on it. Rowyn liked the one with the tightly-clustered flowers that give the handle a black tone.

Over the last ten years, I trained myself to save those forks for each of them. It’s a silly little thing, but if I pull out the star or flower fork, I automatically put it back unless I’m handing it to them.

I still find myself putting that star fork back in the slot, even though Xoe’s not here to claim it later. And that’s when it hits. My girl isn’t here daily. She’s off on her own adventure.

Being not only her mother but an alum at her school, I want to know every detail–but of course, I rein myself in, LOL. David and I were talking about that last night too. All her life, she’s been hearing our stories of St. John’s. She’s been taught the lessons we learned and shaped by the reality we discovered there. But now it will become her story. Her lessons. Her reality.

On the one hand, that’s weird and even difficult from our perspective. But on the other hand, it’s so beautiful. Because that’s true not just of a college, right? But of life. Of faith.

All we can ever do is teach our kids what we’ve learned. But we can’t make them learn it. We can’t make them believe. We can’t make them put their hands in the Lord’s. We can show them, and we can demonstrate, and we can pray. We can instruct and shape them to an extent. But they still have to take their own steps. They have to embrace it for themselves. They have to decide

I don’t know what Xoe’s story will end up being while she’s at St. John’s. I don’t know the friends she’ll make or the truths that will settle in her heart. I don’t know if maybe she’ll meet someone who makes her heart squeeze like mine still does every time I weave my fingers through her father’s. I don’t know what her favorite thing will be, or what she’ll hate. I don’t even now for sure if she’ll love it or if she’ll decide it’s not for her after all.

What I do know is that life, family, faith…they follow a pattern for each of us. We all have to take those steps. Walk into our own destinies. We have to face our fears and wrestle our anxieties. We have to grab hold of our dreams and let them take us with them in their flight.

I miss my girl. Won’t deny that. And I’ll probably keep passing over that fork for who knows how long. But that’s okay. Because in this new chapter of life, I’m going to love opening my dreams to her in new ways. Listening to her stories of how she walks the same halls and sees things in them I never saw. How she’ll live the same dream but experience it in a whole new way. Just like I’ve been doing every time she shares something she learned about faith or love or truth or family.

In life, it’s never enough for something to be our parents’ or grandparents’, our friends’ or siblings’. For it to matter, we have to make it ours.

And when we do, it changes everything.

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