Advent blessings to you! Today’s devotional is written by TCU senior, Drew Curd. Drew comes to us from Lawrenceville, Georgia. At TCU, Drew is a Mathematics major and is Co-President of TCU’s Catholic community. You might know Drew as the young man bounding around campus with a huge smile, a hug and kind words for everyone he sees! Drew shines with joy! The first time I met Drew I was impressed with him. He greeted me with a warm word of welcome and a giant smile. Then, I watched as he went around the room greeting everyone with the same excitement. The first week of Advent we focus on the hope of God, and I could not imagine a better person to speak to us about this. When you see Drew, you cannot help but be filled with hope. The spirit of God is so clearly alive in Drew.
I hope you enjoy these words from Drew as much I have. On this last day of classes for this semester, may God inspire a spirit of HOPE in you.
God’s peace to you,
Allison
An Advent Devotional, by Drew Curd
“They asked each other, ‘Were not our hearts burning within us while he talked with us on the road and opened the Scriptures to us?’”- Luke 24:32
When I was growing up, I asked my mother once if Santa was real. She smiled and looked at me and told me that if Santa was a large man who flew around and delivered presents then of course he was not real. However, if Santa was the spirit of the Christmas season of love and joy, then of course he was incredibly real.
Much like I grew to understand the true Santa, I also slowly grow into realizing how true God is. For me, God is not simply a being that watches over me and guides my every step. Instead, I see God as the Love and Goodness that penetrates the world and becomes incarnated each and every day in the kindness of strangers and the goodness that defies any reasoning. This is the Love that feeds the poor and topples empires.
And perhaps this is why the Christmas story resonates with us. We, like all of humanity, hope for the birth of salvation. Salvation from War. Salvation from Death. Salvation from Destruction. And Salvation is not born in the grand moments of our lives but in its insignificant mangers. We realize later that the presence of God burning in our hearts was born out of a small gesture of love and courage that we had never truly realized before.
We wait and we hope for the birth of God into our lives. And the beauty of the Advent season is that we begin to see the birth of Jesus in each other. Perhaps this is the greatest gift the Advent season can give us.
“God, help us to see the true you during this season of Advent. Help us to embody your transformational love and presence for a world that desperately needs it. May our hearts be burning within us as we spend time with you. Amen.”
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