awake

The sky hangs dark and somber this morning. Winter is slowly wrapping white, frosty fingers around windshields and windows. Cold pushes its way under door frames and nibbles on exposed fingers and toes. The morning yawns and slowly stretches into day.

I sit here with uneasiness and expectancy. Like the morning, I have only just woken from a long sleep and looking lazily around, I see unfamiliarity with every new surge of the sun's light. Things have changed while I've been sleeping. Things I thought were alive and vibrant have fallen victim to the heaviness of winter and death.

I don’t know how I so easily become the walking dead: moving, talking, walking, doing. I’m not sure when the flames of passion for justice and Christ got flooded in the waters of my laziness. Whatever the reason for my acquiescence to the lullaby of indifference, I woke up.

Hallelujah, I woke up.

I saw George again last weekend. I don’t know what it is about the way his heart beats audibly through his chest, but whenever I hear it, I am caught up in the beat. It isn’t George. It isn’t even Africa. It’s the sound of Jesus calling out for justice. How do I so easily forget this call? Why do I so quickly dance to another drummer’s beat? This past weekend I was awakened to the heartbeat again, drawn into the beauty of a coming Kingdom. I was flooded with excitement for Africa.

It’s the first week of Advent and somehow that means something to me this year. I am sitting in expectancy of the coming Christ. He’s going to meet me here, where I am, still rubbing sleep out of my eyes. He’s going to step into this space I occupy and breathe his hope into the fractured pieces of my dreams. He loves me. He loves me and I’m going back to Africa. He loves me and he wants to give me something new. He loves me even though I so easily fall asleep.