Text for the Month
“But they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength…”
Isaiah 40:31
December has a way of slowing us down. Even if our calendars are full, something in this month invites a different kind of attention. The year is drawing to a close, and we begin to look back - sometimes with gratitude, sometimes with questions, sometimes with the feeling that things didn’t turn out quite the way we hoped. Advent steps right into this mixture and offers us not a solution, but a posture: waiting.
Waiting is not something most of us enjoy. My daughter, who is turning six at the beginning of December, has been counting down the days to her birthday party for nearly three weeks already - and every morning she asks if it’s finally here. Her excitement is beautiful, but her impatience is familiar. It reminds me how deeply we all long for things to arrive now, how difficult it can be to stay in that in-between space where anticipation grows but fulfilment is still ahead.
But the biblical story of Advent gives waiting a surprising dignity. Mary waits for a child whose future she cannot fully grasp. Joseph waits to understand his role. The people of Israel wait for a Messiah who does not look like the one they expected. And in all these moments, God is already at work - quietly, patiently, in ways that are often hidden.
One of the most remarkable parts of the Christmas story is that God chooses the ordinary. A young couple from an unimportant town. A stable never meant to be a birthplace. Shepherds far from society’s centre. God arrives not where everything is polished, but in the middle of real life, with all its messiness and
unfinished edges. Perhaps that is why Advent speaks to many of us so deeply. It reminds us that God meets us in the middle of our uncertainties, our routines, and our fatigue. Holiness quietly touches the everyday: a conversation that brings comfort, a gesture of kindness, a moment in which we feel seen.
Maybe the invitation of this season is to be more attentive to these small signs of God’s nearness - open to interruptions, to gratitude, to hope. Advent is the story of a God who comes close in humility, who chooses vulnerability over spectacle, and who offers presence rather than pressure.
So as December unfolds, we might ask: Where am I called to wait with trust? Where might God be moving quietly in my life? And how can I make space for hope to grow - not through grand achievements, but through simple acts of faithfulness?
May this season bring you peace amid the business, courage in the waiting, and the comforting sense that God is nearer than we often dare to believe. A blessed Advent and Christmas season to you.
Sabrina Gröschel, Chaplain of the German YMCA in London