While you wait, remember all will be made right.
While you watch, trust the light will arrive.
While you wonder, believe you’ve not been forgotten.
While you prepare, let yourself hope.
What else can we do?

For as wonderful as the holidays can be they are not a break from the weight of living.

If anything, this is the time of year when life for many becomes heavier.

Navigating difficult relationships.
Returning to a place you once called home.
Sitting in rooms of unmentionable tension.
Being seen as the person you once were and not the person you’ve become.
Seeing empty seats around the table.
Receiving gifts like insults and unwanted advice and being asked questions that cross boundaries.
Reminders of what hasn’t happened or what once happened.

The Christmas season is marketed as one of joy and wonder, and there is certainly joy and wonder in the arrival of Christ, but what do we do when our insides don’t match the sentiment of the season?

What do we do when we are exhausted?
Hurt?
Depressed?
Lonely?
Anxious?
Over it?

What do we do when life feels like the first half of a Hallmark movie and not the second half?

How do we prepare for the arrival of Christ when our lives feel anything but merry and bright?

Over the last few weeks my inbox has been full of messages, reminders that all is not right in the world.

A woman mourning the loss of her husband.
A sister wishing her brother was still here.
A man continuing to search for a spouse.
A mother praying for her child to be healed.
A girl waiting for the darkness to clear and the light to arrive.
A family grieving the death of their son and brother.
A young boy who has been given a cancer diagnosis.
A father wondering how he will provide for his family after being let go.
A student overwhelmed with endless school.
A daughter watching her mother slowly die.
A family searching for a new church home.
A young adult anxious to return home for the holidays.
A friend consumed by stress.
A husband wondering when he will become a father.

Many are left wondering: What do I do now that life has gone the way I didn’t want it to go?

This side of heaven there is a lingering sting, a constant reminder of our need for a Savior. We wait and groan as we watch and pray for change to arrive, just like they did that first Christmas.

The very first Christmas reveals to us that when change arrives it often doesn’t happen the way we thought it would and it doesn’t go the way we thought it would go, but God, in His kindness, does not leave us beneath the weight of our pain.

God fulfills His promise and Christ arrives.

He meets our waiting with wonder.

He brings hope to our heaviness.

At the right time and in the right way, God sends us the One our world has long waited for. 

Jesus quietly enters the world as a baby in a manger, not as a king on a throne.

God meets our cries with an infant holy and divine.

God does things differently, but He does things differently for our good.

And recently, that’s what I have been trying to remember.

This Advent, as we inch our way towards the arrival of Christ, we don’t just skip to the good part, but we prepare for our world to be forever changed by the One who takes on our heaviness and offers us everlasting hope.

So how do we prepare for change to arrive?

We settle in and watch as the sun rises and sets and repeats.
We stay with today and lean into where we are, even if where we are is not where we want to be.
We sit with our questions and our heaviness and the promises of God.
We remember that when life goes the way we didn’t want it to go, that we are not forgotten.
We let our hearts and minds rest knowing that God does things differently, but He does things differently for our good.
We turn our hands up and do the brave thing we’ve been invited to do: Trust.
This is how we prepare.
This is how we continue.

About the Author

Tanner Olson is an author, poet, speaker, and podcaster living in Nashville, Tennessee.

He is the author of I’m All Over the Place, As You Go, Walk A Little Slower, and Continue: Poems and Prayers of Hope.

You can find Tanner Olson’s books on Amazon.

His podcast is The Walk A Little Slower Podcast with Tanner Olson and can be found wherever you listen to podcasts.

Tanner Olson travels around the country sharing poetry, telling stories, and delivering messages of hope.

You can follow Tanner Olson on Instagram (@writtentospeak) and Facebook where you’ll daily find encouraging words of faith and hope.