Five-Minute Friday: Wonder

[I seem to have thrown off the whole "five-minute" stipulation of this writing exercise, so I'll try to get back to that in the New Year...]

"Only the most mature of us are able to be childlike.

And to be able to be childlike involves memory;

we must never forget any part of ourselves."

~Madeleine L' Engle

I remember, but in my mind more than my heart, what it felt like to wait and wait for Christmas.  The growing, gnawing, jittery anticipation.  It was, truly, my favorite time of year - and it couldn't come fast enough.  Oh, how this has changed. 

I remember, the nine-year old me.  Making a list - a long list, mind you - of all my stuffed animals.  A little over a hundred, I recall.  And I knew them all by name and I wrote each name on a scrap of paper, and over one hundred folded pieces filled a tin canister, from which I drew a name and devised a calendar for the month of December: which of my furry friends would sleep with me, each night, leading up to the ultimate slumber party.  None could be left out.  So, come Christmas Eve, I'd sleep beneath a hundred stuffed animals.  Strange as this may sound to adult ears, this was part of my journey of anticipation in the month of December.  It feels like one hundred years ago, but I remember.

And I miss this child that has forgotten hopeful anticipation.  Can I reach back into my memory and access childlike wonder at Christmas, pull it forward several decades later, live it out in a thirty-one year old version of me?  No, I don't need to sleep beneath a pile of animals (I wouldn't be opposed to it, but my husband may not be thrilled).  But instead this childlike heart cries out from beneath a pile of stuff that has grown through the years; not the joys and comforts of faux furry friends, but of sorrows and disappointments and heartache and loss.  And I want to throw it all off this year and say Enough, to climb out from beneath the pile and rediscover wonder and breathe again the air of joy and life that holds this season in a swaddling cloth of glory.

The Wonder of waiting for mystery.  

Waiting with hope.

Waiting with hunger.

The anticipation, each day, of the One I wait for.  The eager searching, eyes wide open, always hopeful.  The longing for this, the greatest Gift I'm given every day, but this time of year - this season - is wrapped in remembering and mystery.

And then, the sigh: this is the One we have waited for. 

This is Advent, and I am determined to find Him here, as a woman who carries her childlike self into this season and waits for the Christ to come and be born, anew, in her heart.

*Joining the fabulous Five-minute Friday gang once more, at Lisa Jo's blog, for a free-writing post on the prompt of "Wonder."