Waiting in Hope and Trepidation

 

I was lying in my darkened bedroom, holding an ice cube on the lump rising on my bruised forehead. Waiting. Waiting for my Dad to get back from work.

It was three months since my 16^th birthday, three months since I’d passed my driving test. I’d been driving home from a cello lesson. Driving home on city streets in rush hour.

Traffic had slowed as it crept sluggishly round a fender-bender, an accident now at the side of the road. I was distracted by it. My attention was on the collision at the side of the road. I was distracted, but still moving forward blindly. I looked ahead again. The traffic light had turned red. The cars ahead had stopped. I braked – too late. Crunch.

My parents’ 1960 Chevy – the first new car they had ever bought, though by now it was a few years old: unwieldly and heavy – had ploughed into a small Renault with its engine vulnerably in the back. My car then pushed it forward until it concertinaed into the car in front.

“What happened?” the front driver demanded. “Did your brakes fail?”

Sheepishly, rubbing my forehead where it had banged off the steering wheel, I demurred. No. I had failed – failed to focus on where I was going.

An hour later, I waited. I waited for Dad to come home. Dad, who’d taught me to drive, always repeating the admonition to remember a car was a lethal weapon.

I heard his car in the driveway. Heard the back door slam. Heard Mom’s voice, then his, low. With trepidation, I heard his step coming down the hall, approaching my bedroom.

He came over to the bed.

“How are you?” he asked, perching on the bed. “Are you ok?”

“Yes, Dad. I’m sorry.”

“You sure you’re not hurt? Nobody was hurt?”

Never mind about the car, he said. He’d deal with the insurance. The car could be fixed. Nobody was hurt. As long as nobody was hurt.

I’d been waiting. Waiting anxiously. Expecting a lecture at best. Car privileges rescinded. Grounding maybe. Displeasure for sure.

Instead, I got love. Unconditional love. And reassurance. He would take care of everything. My Dad would handle it.

The world is waiting. We are all waiting anxiously, on tiptoe, for this pandemic to cease. We were distracted. We’ve taken our eye off the road ahead even while moving forward. While watching one car crash, we have caused another one.

We are all waiting for a saviour to pull us out of the wreckage we’ve caused. Waiting for a saviour.

“He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognise him. He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God … “ John 1:10-12

We’re waiting for a heavy step coming towards us, expecting a reprimand and a punishment, judgment. But our Saviour came as a baby, Immanuel, God with us. Today he is coming to us, breathing unconditional love. Arms open, he is drawing us into a precious, deep hug. Unconditional love, whispering peace to us.

“Come to me, all who are weary and worn out, and I will refresh you.”

Advent. Season of waiting. This year, we are waiting as never before. Christmas is coming, and yes, it will be unlike any Christmas we can remember.

God comes. He doesn’t ask us, “How could you? Why did you?” but “Are you ok?” Fully deserving his wrath, we receive his love.

All who receive him are children of God. We rejoice in the hope of the glory of God, hope which does not disappoint.

My heart is full of love and gratitude for an earthly father who modelled God’s grace to me. My heart is full of love and gratitude for our heavenly Father who gave up everything because of his love for the world.