Women of Advent…Anna

Invariably as the Christmas season comes to a close, well meaning friends will inquire, “Did you get what you wanted?” or “Was time with your family everything you hoped it would be?”

There are any number of answers to these questions. Some years we do, some years we can’t even so we smile and pretend, and some years are actually quite crushing, falling exceedingly short of any semblance of happy holidays. What we want and what we hope for from these sentimentally charged days changes from year to year.

But these questions linger well beyond the month of December, do they not?

Anna is a church figure highly esteemed. Her pedigree impressive; from the tribe of Asher, daughter of Phanuel, a prophetess. Her legacy impeccable; never leaving the temple, she worshipped night and day, fasting and praying.

And many a beautiful baby girl has been named in her honor.

What isn’t talked about as much is she had a husband she shared a home with for seven years. For sixty four years after that, she lived as a widow…no husband, no home. I wonder how long it took her to turn the life she thought she would have, and the life she was born to have, into grateful devotion? I wonder when asked if she got everything she wanted, what she would’ve said in year 2 at the temple, or year 15 of widowhood, or year 27 as her bones creaked loudly when kneeling to pray, or year 39 and still no sign of the Messiah?

It’s emotionally expedient for us to sum up a life as well lived as Anna’s with a succinct little narrative, rather than to chronicle the years one by one.  But 64 years is 64 years, regardless of the era in which one was born. Days are long, challenges arise, expectations shatter, friendships wane.

And Anna was no less a victor and a failure than we.

Yet her life is celebrated because of the faithfulness it displayed.  The accumulation of all the lonely days and sleepless nights didn’t distract her from her worship, but became a part of it. As a result, she was present when Mary and Joseph brought the baby to the temple; she was there to touch the tender cheek of the one she’d prayed and fasted decades for. In living every day of every unintended year, she didn’t miss the moment that gave her life its very essence.

She saw the Lord, her promised king, in infant form.

Isn’t that what we ultimately want this Christmas? To see Jesus face to face? To know him so well, we’d recognize him anywhere, come what may?

Then take heart, dear soul, your years count; each empty, tragic, wonderful one of them.

Love the Lord, all you his saints. The Lord preserves the faithful…  Psalm 31:23