Advent III: The Empty Stable

It's Christmas time, and I have decked the halls, and trimmed the tree, and it's starting to snow,
but I feel a sense of emptiness.
I can understand what the stable felt like,
nearby a packed inn was a lonely stable.
An empty stable, an insignificant stable.
It was there, and that was all it was.
It was there like it always was.
An empty stable, an insignificant stable.
And then they came.
A young girl, a middle aged man, and their donkey-chariot.
They came to rest in that empty stable, that insignificant stable.
And into the world came a baby, a tiny baby.
Born in an empty stable, an insignificant stable.
And had the stable not been there, a rock or a tree would have sufficed, but the story tells of a stable, an empty stable, an insignificant stable.
And that gives me hope, because I cannot help but feel empty and insignificant at this time of year.
Like an empty stable, an insignificant stable.
I advent.
I wait, but at times I do not know for what it is I wait.
I am just living the only way I know how, the best I know how, like an empty stable, an insignificant stable.
And Mothering Lord, maybe this year you will birth something inside of me that will fill me and change the world with its significance.
God only you know what I need and when I need it.
So for now, I say that I am but an empty stable, an insignificant stable.
Please use me as you will.

Written By Dana Honderich, Advent 2009