Three years ago, my family and I spent Advent awaiting the arrival of a baby. We had agreed to foster an infant, the child of a distant relative, who was placed in foster care when she was three weeks old. For weeks, we completed paperwork, were interviewed by social workers, had our home inspected, and submitted letters from employers and personal references to get our foster care licensed renewed. At last, our license was approved, and we started to wait again, this time for word of when she would come to our home. We got a date and made a mad dash to a store on the Saturday before Christmas to buy all the supplies we’d need to make the child at home. We were filled with excitement, anticipation, anxiety, and many, many questions about what welcoming her into our family would mean.

This experience of waiting for a baby throughout Advent brought incredible richness to the season. I felt a profound closeness to my own mother, who went into labor with me on Christmas Day. And, of course, I found new insights into Mary’s journey to motherhood and the courage it took for her to assent to such a momentous call from God. And, as my spouse Becky put it, welcoming a child whose young life had already been filled with tragedy and turmoil brought new meaning to the Incarnation. God becoming human meant that the divine was part of the ugliness, sickness, poverty, violence, and death, as well as the joys, triumphs, love, and grace, of the human community.

Each of us says “Yes” to invitations from the Divine at unexpected moments of our lives. Each time we do, we enter our own Advent, and prepare for a new inbreaking of God’s light and love into the world. For many of us, embracing who we truly are as LGBTQI people represents one of those significant Christmastides in our own lives. For others, it might have been hearing a child, a parent, a sibling, or another loved one reveal their identity, and making the choice to affirm them that was the Incarnational moment. Each of these moments is life-changing, for us and for others, and transcends the challenges and wonders of our individual realities. Each deepens our connection to the Divine dwelling within and around us.

As we mark another Christmas fraught with Covid’s impact, I hope that you will take a few moments to reflect on the ways you have been open to unexpected Annunciations from a God who sees you as richly blessed, strong, and a key part of the salvation story. Think about how you prepared for anticipated changes to life, and how welcoming them helped you to become more of who you were meant to be, how your “yes” enabled God to shine through you to brighten someone else’s darkness.

On behalf of the Board and Staff of DignityUSA, we wish you a truly joyous Christmas, and hope you are able to delight in the Divine birthed over and over in you.

Christmas Blessings!

Marianne Duddy-Burke, Executive Director