Advent Preparations

I found an old entry, years old, which said something that relates directly to what is going on right now. You brought that back around, God. Thank You.

You see, nothing is ever wasted. No true opportunity from Me is ever really lost. Sometimes I show you glimpses early to help prepare you for the fullness meant for later. Sometimes you turn away, or turn back, out of a feeling of unreadiness. Sometimes I need to reveal your unreadiness, not to discourage you but to help you grow into your opportunities. Part of living “right place, right time, right person” is trusting Me when you see doors closing when you are—as now—in a state of pause, of waiting.

Advent is a state of pause. It seems the opposite, with all the rushing to be ready, all the preparations, all the extra tasks, but Advent was intended as a more quiet expectation, quiet only so you could feel the anticipation and experience even more joy at its fulfillment. Now on the day after Christmas, the most dominant feelings for adults are relief and exhaustion.

Advent was not meant for lethargy but for a more gentle, deliberate and mindful pace of preparation. Decorating and cooking and gift selection and giving, the gathering of loved ones—all of these were meant to have counterparts in your soul. People often take time to clean out closets, releasing what they no longer need to make room for new. You can see the correlation to your spirit’s housekeeping. It’s good to take some deliberate time to examine the corners of your attitudes and your core values and make sure what you wear everyday—your words and actions—are a true fit.

You decorate your houses and make festive preparations; how do you decorate your soul: With what do you embellish your spirit: With joy. With praise. With gratitude. With a new song. There are songs you hear only at this time of year. It is a time to reflect back and look ahead, too. Some of the embellishments you can add in Advent are your prayerful dreams and goals and visions for the year ahead.

As Advent concludes and Christmas comes, you both give and receive. Give yourself once again to Me; receive once again in your lived-experience expressions of My particular love for you. Children anticipate Santa will bring them good gifts, wished-for gifts. Are My Gifts less wonderful than the gifts they ask for?

What about gifts we don’t get, you ask. My dear child, just as no opportunity is wasted, no true gift is ever withheld. Human lives intersect and overlap and the is not yet the perfect world I created it to be. Remember, your eartly sorrow at losing someone you love is the underside of the tapestry—from the topside, from their perspective, all is glory, all is joy, all is magnificence. And the pattern revealed there is a beautiful weaving.

That is humanity’s true Advent, lived every day, every hour, of human lifetimes—the leading up to the greatest Gift of all.

You mean heaven.

Yes, full union with Myself and with all creation. For “it is not my will that anyone perish, but that all come to repentance.” And My Will shall be done, My Kingdom shall come. What a day that will be—for Me as well as for humanity. Cicero had it correct: the last day does not bring extinction, but change of place.