It was a dark and stormy night

when the LONG awaited puppy arrived,

an early Christmas gift:

Hope is on tiptoe with joy  

 As anticipation grows through the years.

Though its slowness may annoy,

once here, bursts with happy tears.

Advent is waiting, longing for our Savior to be born.

But we women know, labor comes before delivery.

Jesus, who for the joy set before Him, 

endured...

John Wesley in his "A Plain Account of Christian Perfection," wrote

"Eager for Thee I ask and pant,

So strong the principle divine,

Carries me out with sweet constraint,

Till all my hallow'd soul be thine;

Plunged in Godhead's deepest sea,

And lost in thine immensity!"

"Eager...I ask and pant"

is the description of the anticipation of a child

trusting in God's goodness to receive a gift

much longed for.

In the here and now, it might be a puppy or a hamster;

but in the big picture, it is heaven itself.

Oh how I love those last two lines especially,

to paraphrase, 

Lost in the deepest sea of His immensity.

Oh, the limitless bounty of God the giver of every good and perfect gift.