Abi's Advent -- Week One

...so, I was gone Sunday through Friday night late for the entire first week of Advent...the week where we talk about longing...longing for the Savior to come and make things right, bringing justice and righteousness.

I spent this week longing as well.  Longing for this week of intensive neurological therapy to restore balance to my battered brain.  It was a lot of work, but the good news is that the wonderful team at NW Functional Neurology were, effectively, able to reboot my brain and restore balance.

The bad news is that my newly-balanced pathways are not solid enough yet to withstand the waves of stress that wash over my brain day in and day out...and so I must work through my set of nine exercises three to five times a day...and make these fragile pathways solid from repetition...and more repetition. And I have to find a way to reduce the stress.

There is no one in my home who is particularly interested in this essential task before me, much less eager to help me -- either with the exercises or with the reduction of stressors.

...just me -- and Jesus and Papa and Grandmother, that is.  Somehow, it is time to make this foursome the true Reality in all aspects of my life...every day...all day long.  Yes, I would like to have my family help, encourage and care for me. But that's just not what's happening right now. It makes me very, very sad and lonely to own that reality.  But it is, as they say, what it is.

And so I have had a very intense sense of longing this week...longing for the Primary Family of Father, Son and Spirit to take their rightful place in my heart this Advent...to dull the ache of expectation and replace it with the healing balm of expectancy. 

All. Will. Be. Well.  [Always makes me think of that recurring theme from Shakespeare In Love:  It will all work out in the end.  How?  I don't know, it's a mystery.]  Embrace the mystery....

As Advent cycles around again this year, I am a completely different person than I was last year...and every year before. I am grateful for all that I have learned and all the ways I have grown.  I believe that this was the year and the time for this work to be accomplished with my very purple, broken brain...and I trust that Jesus will walk with me through the therapy.

So...just had to get this first post of Advent in before midnight, when the Second Sunday of Advent begins.

Whew!

Blessings on you....

Abi