Advent week 2
Don’t wait
“Don’t wait until you’re seventy-four…”
Her soft brown eyes tenderly pierce her granddaughter’s heart.
“Don’t wait to start trusting Jesus,” she presses.
Her great-grandbabies shift and whine restless.
“And now oh Lord, what do we wait for?”
If our trust is in you, what do we wait for?
I think she means, as she sighs, adjusting the oxygen tubing—
Don’t wait to risk loving.
Don’t wait to be misunderstood.
Don’t wait to try speaking the truth in love.
Don’t wait to seek forgiveness and forgive.
Don’t wait to trust Jesus, though trying leaves you feeling like you’re not enough,
or too much.
Don’t wait to trust that Jesus has made it safe to fail and try again.
Keep trying to love each other.
That’s what she’s saying while she reviews her life, remembering the marriages and bitterness, the childbirth and years without a call.
There’s a cross with the slung figure of a man hanging next to a plastic clock.
We put the bread in her bruised hand and sing, “What can wash away my sins? Nothing but the blood of Jesus.”
Don’t wait.