I often feel my world is small. My vision is short, my concerns are domestic. When I occasionally wipe the sleep from my eyes, I think about the possibilities of being in a new city and  how I would like to live intentionally. I want to have meaningful relationships with my neighbours; I would like our home to be a place of peace in our community, a place of God's justice and a place of encountering the Spirit. And then a child needs my attention and it is once again diverted from the world outside my door.

It seems I just don't have the strength or the attention span to tackle more than the task in front of me, which feels pretty monumental most of the time. Sometimes I shudder at the thought of how much influence I'm having in these little lives.

I read this passage in Jesus Rediscovered a few days ago, and figured it might make a good launching point for a blog post.

"Public benevolence can never be a substitute for private virtue; it is more important, and more difficult, to check one outburst of temper, however trivial, than to engage in any number of public demonstrations against collective brutality and injustice."

-Malcolm Muggeridge

But today was not a good day. As a friend put it, "Today I failed at being a mommy." When the darkness in my own heart gets pushed and yanked and brought into the light for those I love most to see, I realize again that for God to change my own heart really is nothing short of earth-shatteringly miraculous.

So I hope that the Prince of Peace, born into the smallest and humblest of circumstances, might also make His dwelling in me. It is Advent, and I am waiting.