The transforming power of The Story is that it isn’t a red carpet parade of A-list luminaries. No, the Gospel is peopled by nobodies. Forgotten ones. Little people in a BIG STORY. Anna is one of those.

I don’t yet know what Advent means, but perhaps reflecting on the experience of waiting and longing can teach us.

Israel once had a song. Now, even the desire to sing was a distant memory. God often comes when we’re no longer even looking.

As we approach the season of Advent, let’s first make room for the reality of our experience of God’s seeming silence in our lives. What it is like to live with such silence? What’s really happening in those voids?

In the long, bone-chilling, pre-Advent silences, like those who went before us, we too must wait.