“I’ll Wait For You…”
FROM THE DESK OF IELA GALIANO-WILLIAMS
This blog is part of our 2024 Advent series! But can be read any time you need some love in your season of waiting…
…is a line used in many a romance story.
The words are a declaration of love usually spoken when there is a need for the romantic leads to be apart for a length of time. We often know, when we hear this line, it is far from the end of the story.
As we well know, advent is a season of waiting. When Christmas comes we finally celebrate the arrival of Jesus' birth. Yet, even this is not the end of the story, not even a little bit. As Christians, we live in the constant tension of the here but not yet. God's presence is with us, but we are still waiting for the day when He will come again and we will live in the fullness of Christ's love.
In some ways, we have all whispered a promise of love to God of “I'll wait for you.”
This Advent season, I recently began rewatching the show, Downton Abbey. If you are unfamiliar with the story, there is one plot line where a husband ends up in jail after being wrongly accused of a crime. In response, his wife promises to spend however long it takes finding proof of his innocence. He accepts this, on the condition that in the midst of her waiting, she promises him to not remain in perpetual mourning but to “…make friends. Have fun. Live life.”
Now I realize this is a line written for television and does not fully encapsulate what it means to wait for Christ's return. However, I think what it can point to is that the waiting we are called to is not a stagnant one, but one full of life where we are invited to experience hope, peace, joy, and love until we know them again in complete unity with our Creator.
If you'll give me permission to now jump far ahead in the story from Christmas, we also know that when Jesus' ministry was complete on earth he didn't ask us to wait alone, but instead promises to wait with us in the form of the Holy Spirit. What a beautiful gift.
And so I ask, for the final time this year, what are you waiting for and what difference does love make in your waiting? What might living life to the full look like knowing that you are more deeply loved than you could ever imagine, and that you have the capacity to love in return?