My students are growing weary with writing, presenting, and test preparation. Yet, I try to remind them (and myself!) of the good privilege they’re receiving in all this education. Their deliverance is coming final exam week.

I haven’t been walking without waddling for some time now. This kid is repeatedly bruising one of my ribs, and sleep is growing elusive. Yet, this is my fourth baby, and I do know that deliverance, in the very specific form of delivery, is coming. So I pray for the grace to treasure up these last few days of kicks and the ability to watch television without being coated with spit up.

Then there’s the liturgical season: my sweet kids have developed a new litany of their own, repeating “I want that,” in the face of television commercials and catalogues that slip through the mail to them before I can stash them in the recycling. My nesting has mostly taken the form of buying and wrapping gifts early, lest my kids be left without Christmas bounty while I’m in the hospital. And yet, the joyous expectation of Advent is still there in the middle of “I want that” and to-do lists. We light our candles in the evening and sing “O Come, O Come Emmanuel.” Ransom captive Israel! Though my oldest is only eight, I’m caught by years of memories of her singing the hymn with candlelight reflected in her eyes. And I’m caught by the beauty of the additions of her brother’s and then her sister’s eyes to that candlelit table and by the expectation of another pair of eyes watching the candles next December. Deliverance is coming with the baby in the manger, and it’s ok that said deliverance will include the joy of peeling back gift wrap.

The ransom of captive Israel is, of course, accomplished only because Mary was delivered of the baby Jesus. Joy and release, pain and promise, are knit together. Delivering babies, it turns out, works best when I stop fighting. So, I’m praying in this Advent for the grace to let go of all kinds of things. I know it’s controversial, but I’m ready to let go of what seems to me to be an increasingly false dichotomy between penitence and joy. If we don’t sing only Advent hymns this season, I’ll try to let the Christmas carols prepare me for Christ’s coming as well. If the tree is already up and the lights are already sparkling, I’ll try to view it, not as a violation of the season of penance, but as the unstoppable breaking in of the joy that is coming. Letting go has never been particularly easy for me, but it’s one of the chief spiritual lessons that God has used motherhood to bring into my life. I’m letting go of other things as well. The legal bondage of perfectionism. My stubborn refusal to accept that, for whatever reason, having the coats hung up instead of tossed into the hall is important to my husband. The need to figure out how to perfectly parent those kids of mine or to ban all suspect toys and suspect joy from our household. Penitence and joy, expectation and deliverance are knit together.

As an Advent-Christmas treat, we’re going to a concert of Andrew Peterson’s fabulous advent album, Behold the Lamb. The lyrics march us through the whole story of what God has done for us through the centuries, of joy and deliverance. Peterson connects our need for deliverance, our need for penance, with the joy of Christmas, and his lyrics plead with God to “gather us beneath your wings tonight.”

So, deliver me, Emmanuel.
Of grading.
Of this rib-kicking blessing of a kid.
Of the kind of waiting and expectation that precludes joy.
And, most of all, from the tyranny of sin and the terror of death.
Deliver us.