I'll never forget the excitement of being a child at Christmas time. When I was a kid, we would get the JCPenny catalog. The catalog had pictures of clothes, furniture, and toys. I remember my siblings and I going through the magazine and mark all the things we wanted. I can't remember exactly how we did this, whether we had our own colored marker or initialed our names beside the gift. All I remember is doing this for years. As the catalog found it's way into our home, months before the weather was cold enough to even think about Christmas, we would get a turn and go through the magazine with wide eyes and big dreams of marking the things we wanted.
I really don't remember all the things I got for Christmas over the years or if they were from the catalog or not, but I do remember one Christmas really wanting a particular toy. I was probably somewhere around 2nd or 3rd grade. At the time they had these stuffed animals that you could draw on. I remember seeing commercials for it and seeing it in the stores. It took two interest of mine at the time and combined them. That was what I really wanted for Christmas. I remember seeing the presents wrapped under the tree and something inside of me told me that the toy I wanted was there, waiting for me. I never once tried to peek (I actually never tried finding Christmas presents as a kid). Everyday I would walk by the tree and even though there were only boxes wrapped in paper, I knew what I wanted was waiting there for me.
Sure enough, Christmas morning rolled around. I woke up and discovered that what I had known all along was there. What I had asked for had been given to me. What I had hoped for had come true.
I feel like adulthood is similar to waiting for Christmas as a child. Many of us have dreams. Many of us desire certain types of relationships, plane tickets, children, a job we love, etc. Whatever it is that you might be waiting for, it probably feels a lot like waiting for Christmas as a child. Even though it came once a year, it felt like decades before it would arrive. Even if the catalog arrived in September, it felt like a whole other year passed before Christmas arrived and you got to see if what you had asked for was waiting for you.
Waiting is hard. I don't believe it's something that gets easier the older you get. We tell children to wait all the time, as if it's something easy to do, but it isn't. Waiting requires patience. Waiting requires that the answer you have been seeking for so long will finally appear. Waiting requires trust.
I've had a few dreams about my own desires lately. The interesting thing about my dreams lately has been that they each serve the same message. They each have said that timing is a thing. That in order for the gift to fully be given, to be fully appreciated, you have to give it time.
I'm learning, slowly but surely, that when you trust that your desire will be given to you, in the right timing, you get to experience that same anticipation as you did as a kid. It's like walking past that Christmas tree with the gift right in front of you all over again. It's that feeling of knowing that what you have asked for is waiting for you. It's knowing that it would spoil Christmas if you are unwilling to wait. The anticipation, the trusting, the believing is what makes the gift so special.
The toy I got that Christmas, God only knows what happened to it. I'm sure the ink dried to the marker and the stuffing came out of the stuffed animal, but in the end it wasn't about the toy. In the end it was about knowing your desires were heard, it's about knowing that someone cared enough to give you what your little heart desired in the moment. It was about waking up Christmas morning to find out that what you had hoped for was true.
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