{"id":132,"date":"2009-12-22T09:23:00","date_gmt":"2009-12-22T09:23:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/thinplaces\/2009\/12\/waiting-for-god-or-joy-to-the-world-part-one.html"},"modified":"2009-12-22T09:23:00","modified_gmt":"2009-12-22T09:23:00","slug":"waiting-for-god-or-joy-to-the-world-part-one","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2009\/12\/waiting-for-god-or-joy-to-the-world-part-one.html","title":{"rendered":"Waiting for God (or Joy to the World Part One)"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
<\/p>\n

Joy to the World , the Lord is come!
Let earth receive her King;
Let every heart prepare Him room,
And Heaven and nature sing,
And Heaven and nature sing,
And Heaven, and Heaven, and nature sin<\/span><\/span><\/b><\/i>g.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/b><\/span><\/h2>\n
“Let every heart prepare Him room.”<\/span><\/div>\n

<\/span><\/div>\n
It struck me this morning that there are three aspects to the waiting we do in the season of Advent. First, there is the waiting of longing, yearning, the waiting expressed in the mournful tunes like “O Come O Come Emmanuel.” This is the waiting of recognition that all is not well in the world, that we need a Savior and Redeemer to make it right.<\/span><\/div>\n

<\/span><\/div>\n
Then there is contented waiting, waiting that hearkens back to Psalm 131, where the image comes to us of a baby held in her mother’s arm, quiet, at peace. <\/span><\/div>\n

<\/span><\/div>\n
Finally, there is anticipatory waiting, the eager excitement that looks forward with joy to the Lord’s coming. Children give us a picture of this type of waiting at Christmas time. And so does the tune of “Joy to the World.”<\/span><\/div>\n

<\/span><\/div>\n
So, as we wait–with longing, contentment, and eager anticipation–“Let every heart prepare him room.” <\/span><\/div>\n

<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Joy to the World , the Lord is come!Let earth receive her King;Let every heart prepare Him room,And Heaven and nature sing,And Heaven and nature sing,And Heaven, and Heaven, and nature sing. “Let every heart prepare Him room.” It struck me this morning that there are three aspects to the waiting we do in the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":88,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-132","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-down-syndrome"],"yoast_head":"\nWaiting for God (or Joy to the World Part One) - Thin Places<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2009\/12\/waiting-for-god-or-joy-to-the-world-part-one.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Waiting for God (or Joy to the World Part One) - 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Two major life experiences have shaped her writing and her faith\u00e2\u20ac\u201dcaring for her mother-in-law as she battled cancer and welcoming her daughter Penny into the world after she was diagnosed at birth with Down syndrome. Both experiences expanded and enriched her understanding of what it means to be human and to receive each and every person as a gift.\u00c2\u00a0 A graduate of Princeton University and Princeton Theological Seminary, she is the author of Penelope Ayers: A Memoir, and the forthcoming A Good and Perfect Gift (Bethany House). Her essays have appeared in First Things, The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Christian Century, ChristianityToday.com, and Bloom, among other online venues.","sameAs":["http:\/\/amyjuliabecker.com"],"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/author\/amyjuliabecker"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/88"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=132"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=132"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=132"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=132"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}