The Nativity is full of faithful women. Mary, Elizabeth, and Anna were all practiced in the fine art of waiting.
Patience is a virtue because it isn't easy. Practicing patience means denying oneself instant gratification. It can mean holding your tongue when you are itching to say something. It can mean long hours, days, months, and years in the hallways of life waiting for a door to open. It can mean choosing worship over whining.
We do not talk about Anna much. A prophetess, a widow (married 7 years and then a widow until the age of 84), and one committed to a life of fasting and praying. Day and night she could be found at the temple. No full social calendar. No lunch with friends. She lived her life in worship. What an example she is to all of us.
She was one of the first to truly understand and recognize the arrival of the Immanuel. She lived to see him. She lived to talk about it... and talk about it... and talk about it.
"Anna, a prophet, was also there in the Temple. She was the daughter of Phanuel from the tribe of Asher, and she was very old. Her husband died when they had been married only seven years. 37 Then she lived as a widow to the age of eighty-four. She never left the Temple but stayed there day and night, worshiping God with fasting and prayer. She came along just as Simeon was talking with Mary and Joseph, and she began praising God. She talked about the child to everyone who had been waiting expectantly for God to rescue Jerusalem." -Luke 2:36-38
"She talked about the child to anyone who had been waiting expectantly."
She knew first hand that God's plan is not always easy and his timing is not always "convenient," as we plan out our days and our lives. Her persistence and prayers were rewarded with a personal encounter with the Christ child. After more than 50 or 60 years as a widow, she glimpsed the one who would fulfill the many prophecies.
I cannot imagine the fullness in her heart. The awe and then the awesomeness of it all.
Many years ago, my friend and Sister in Christ, Julie Largent, shared that she reserves the word "awesome" for God. I took up the challenge. It feels like a way of honoring the magnitude of who He is. For me, it has become a habit. If I use the word "awesome," it should be pointing to His grace, mercy, justice, power, timing, creativity, and more.
Anna lived in awe of the God who never abandoned her. He rewarded her life of faithfulness, not instantly... but in a way that would echo into eternity as we are still speaking her name and telling of her devotion.
Today, I am grateful for Anna's faithfulness.
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