Advent, Preparing and Stir Up Your Power

[amayasora2992]

Advent season again. My church started the new year by voting overwhelmingly to welcome a new pastor. It will be filled with more waiting, more preparation, than usual.

For me, I am feeling the clarion call (I know, synesthesia, but it's true; I feel the call) to confidence. To "stand up an raise [my] head," as our new pastor said many, many times today in her sermon. And she meant it. She preached that Gospel so hard. So, I am going to once again attempt to do The Slate Project's Advent devotional.

Today's verb is "stir," from Isaiah 51:15

For I am the Lord your God,
who stirs up the sea so that its waves roar-
the Lord Almighty is his name.

I have chosen to do an erasure poem with one of today's hymns that really stirred something within me (See what I did there??), titled "Each Winter as the Year Grows Older." Which begins very depressing but ends with the hope of Christ's coming - as do our lives. I interspersed the Bible verse between each stanza of the song.


The Year

Each year, older.
We grow
set in
The verities,
shaken.

your God,
the sea, that roar-
his name.

cry out,
call,
overshout reason,
scream - ignore
All before.

For the Lord your God,
stirs up the roar
the Lord Almighty.

believe beyond believing,
life from death
growth from our grieving;
We can! Our breath
transfixed by faith.

For I am
the Lord Almighty

the
journey,
living,
Can kindle
God's love.

Lord God,
stir up
the name.

ecstasy and sorrows,
peace and pain,
today's world.
Renew our lives
Jesus, come!

Lord God,
stir up the sea so that its waves roar.