Christ Our Shepherd Advent Calendar 2019
Daily Advent Reflection from Shelley Casey
Waiting… Watching…
These words are being used frequently here at COS during this Advent Season. These are powerful and relevant words. When I reflect on Advent this year, I think about what I have waited and watched for in my life. One of these is our children. My husband of 30 years, Ed, and I have 7 children, we are “that” big family you see filling the pews here.
When we were expecting our eldest children, there was great faith that they would be healthy and that we would understand the needs of an infant, toddler, etc… We were confident in our roles as parents and we were blessed with 3 beautiful, healthy and thriving children.
God put in our hearts a call to adopt. Although it was never in our “plan”, we were encouraged and excited about this new chapter in our lives. A true journey in faith. After a few years of training, interviews, and home visits, we were approved. Our hearts grew from being open to the idea of adopting 1 or 2, to adopting a sibling group. We identified a sibling group of three children, ages 2, 4, and 7. The caseworker told us there was a fourth sibling, an infant placed separately. She asked if we would consider a sibling group of 4 and before I could even process the question, my husband answered yes. A sibling group of 4 children that we could not meet until we said yes and were approved. We said yes and we were approved.
Now came the waiting for the arrival of our 4 children… to meet them for the first time. It was about 6 weeks of waiting until we were able to meet them for the first time. This waiting was much different than our wait with our first three children. We didn’t know what to expect, so excited, so nervous, and the waiting felt like an eternity. I can only imagine the very young thoughts of both our biological and adopted children. The waiting and then watching for all us to be united as a family.
As we celebrate our 10 th anniversary of receiving our youngest four children, I reflect on who was watching and waiting for the birth of Christ. Not just Mary and Joseph, but countless numbers of people with many, many years of hope waited on the arrival of our Savior, long prophesied.
