Welcome to the season of Advent, which means “coming” in Latin. The Christian church designates the four Sundays before Christmas as Advent, a time of waiting for the coming of Emmanuel, another name for Jesus, a name that means “God with us.”
I received several notices of special Advent devotionals on waiting this year. Yet, I realized, this Advent for me is less about waiting for what is to come and more about recovering from what already came this year.
One year ago, we were waiting on doctors and diagnoses for Chuck. And I have already been feeling the PTSD of that waiting and what it led to – hearing “You need another open-heart surgery,” waiting to get it scheduled, waiting for the surgery date to arrive. Waiting during his surgery.
Waiting following a massive stroke right after surgery.
No, I’m not waiting for something this year. I’m needing to heal from all the waiting this year.
Then God gave me an unconventional Advent devotional. I purchased a book called God Is at Eye Level two Decembers ago, and on my shelf it has sat, largely unread. Until it called to me last week, and I reread the subtitle: Photography as a Healing Art.
Yes, that’s the Advent devotional I need this year.
I wasn’t sure how I would use it, but, as I paged through the book, certain phrases jumped out at me. The first being the very first thing written on the Introduction page, a quote:
“There are two ways of spreading light: to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it.”
Edith Wharton
Suddenly, I knew that was what I needed to photograph – and I already had the image in my house. For Christmas I set four pillar candles (don’t worry, they’re battery-operated) on an antique organ which has decorative beveled edge mirrors on the upper shelf. I tried framing the photo several ways and finally found the one that was the image representation of those words.
And now I knew how this book on photography was going to be my Advent devotional. And how it would heal me.