All Creation Waits: The Advent Mystery of New Beginnings

This book was such a beautiful surprise! It was a gift to me and it completely changed my approach to Advent and the Christmas season this past year. The illustrations are stunning and the research that Gayle Boss provides throughout, brought depth to the readings and the meaning of this season. The quotes chosen for each day were thoughtful and uncommon. I learned so much and marveled at the wonder of it all. Recommend it for individuals and families to share.

I didn’t know it, but I have waited and longed for a book like this all my life. I am seven decades old now and I have been captivated by the season of advent, with the wreath of evergreens and the candles…promising something wonderful as the final candle is lit. (Some add a fifth, pure white or gold candle on Christmas Day—that is the tradition I observe—it’s fitting to recognize the Day that Hope is come to earth in the form of Jesus the Christ.) Like the author says, advent calendars are Christmas calendars and her story takes us further back in creation to the animal life that is upon the earth before humans celebrated holidays and traditions. They are in touch with what they need to survive the winter and spring up again, awake with the promise of the days ahead. It’s circular just like our wreaths—and green to represent eternal life. She describes what the creatures go through to sustain the winter and survive to the advent of a new year..it’s a book of expectation and the dangers of survival. It describes what instincts each depends on to survive and go forward. I hung on every word—it went to the basics of life in a time when most of us are scurrying about and hurrying in crowds to shop for the foods and the gifts and the decorations that we all desire to adorn our holiday each year. Gayle shows us how to slow down and breathe deep and consider as the Bible says “the lilies of the field”, and how needs are met at the very basic level of life. And how there is always a door of hope to step through if we can be brave enough to get in touch with our creator and how life comes with a recipe that, when followed, always turns out perfectly as the Creator and Author of life planned. It’s perfect as an advent book and not just a story book about animals, because the nature of it is to go slowly each day savoring one species, one life form and how it anticipates the winter season and prepares. You would spoil it all to just sit and read it straight through. I am hoping my children embrace this—I know my grandchildren will. It’s the way to introduce life and death and the challenge of following your instincts and not get lost in all the many things we have added on to the holidays. I myself, LOVE all those things but I can see that an accumulation of joys over the years. Thanks be to Gayle Boss for putting forth this book of stories so that each one gets the opportunity to start at the beginning and contemplate life at its very basic place with the animal kingdom. My heart joins with hers in hoping many readers (and listeners) will pause and receive the rich exchange of some snuggle time with loved ones—media shut off for a time of sinking ourselves into the earthy reality of life when all creatures great and small acknowledge they have a built in survival map and a longing to reach the promise of a blessed eternal life that is most exquisitely illustrated as she explains the true meaning of the ancient Christian concept of advent—whose we are and whom we wait expectantly for. Bravo! I give it TEN STARS!