So We Will Hope
It's the first Sunday of Advent. (Really it's Monday right now because I just studied all night and it's after midnight, but it's still Sunday to me because I haven't slept yet. Finals…holla!)
Last year was the first year I really recognized Advent and made a place for it in my life. I read some short books about it and finally realized the importance of it all. I'm getting more into that stuff the older I get and the more my faith becomes my own…I'm figuring out the ways I want to carry it, the parts I want to understand deeply. The parts that are the most real to me. And Advent is one of my favorite things. I've come to hold it closely.
Advent, for the Church, is the 4 Sundays leading up to Christmas. It's a season anticipating Christmas, Jesus' birth, because It parallels the way we celebrate his birth when he came to Earth with anticipating his coming again some day.
Advent is a time of being purposeful in waiting, of remembering what it is we're waiting for: that Jesus promised He would be back, and we are waiting for Him to fulfill that promise. It's a season of longing. (My favorite EVER Advent post here by Sarah Bessey. Read it)
This year I want to be even more purposeful about it. I want to do more than read some things in my spare time. I just want to make room for it because I need to.
I googled some things about how people celebrate Advent in their home and found a bunch of references about wreaths and candle lighting and scriptures to read—mostly things to do with kids. I want to do that so badly with my own family some day—there's something about holidays and traditions that makes the ache in me even more…achy?...for the part of my life I don't have yet: the part where I am a wife and a mom. It is one of the deepest longings in me. I was daydreaming about huddling some kids around a wreath, lighting some candles, looking at my husband, talking to our kids about Hope, Love, Joy, Peace, and the man who came as a baby and became like us and how He'll come again some day. I don't have that yet (and disclaimer: I'm sure when that time comes it will be a lot less Hallmarkish than it is in my mind…I may be a dreamer but I'm not deluded), but I decided I could still have my own little Advent time. I put away my notes and sat down in my living room at my coffee table. The first Sunday of Advent you're supposed to light the purple candle on the wreath, which symbolizes Hope. I didn't have a wreath or colored candles, only a Bath & Body Works Capri Citron candle and a whole lot of mental exhaustion and neck pain from a day of studying.
So I lit the unseasonal candle and just stared at it for awhile (somewhat amused at how silly of an attempt it felt, but also thankful that Advent is more about the position of our hearts than the supplies we use). I read some scripture about Hope and promises fulfilled and the ones that will be fulfilled.
I sat with some of the things I hope for the most, some of the deepest longings in me. And I'm thankful for a God who doesn't ask me to do anything He hasn't already done—waiting, hoping, longing, suffering, loving, obeying. He's done it all before me, so I can do it now.
I wrote down those things that I'm longing for, knowing He is the root of everything I hope for and that nothing I hope for is too great for Him.
Broken relationships to be mended.
Wisdom and discernment during the rest of grad school.
Healing from past hurts that are resurfacing.
Financial wisdom and a budget that I can stick to…ultimately to be debt free.
A husband and kids someday. Including foster parenting and adopting, even if I never get married…but first just for a healthy relationship…I guess I could start there. haha!
I also sat a long time with the other kind of longing, the deepest kind of longing—the longing we will have until He comes back.
Because these times are hard for hoping, I think.
There are refugees being turned away by countries who have the safety they seek, because we are scared of what evil they could bring that we don't already have. Mass shootings in schools and movie theaters and concert halls. ISIS. A President who tweets things my 11 year old nephew would never say.
It's all so fear-ridden that sometimes it makes me forget how to Hope for a while. I wonder what the next headline will be that could possibly be more debilitating than the current ones… and then another awful headline happens and we try to recuperate from the blow just to endure another after another.
And apart from the headlines, we have our own lives. We're muddled with grief and fear and anxiety and broken marriages and abandoned relationships and depression and financial strain and illness. Hoping can be hard.
Is it really ever easy, though? I mean, the definition of hope is to look forward with desire and reasonable confidence; feel something desired may happen (this is from the dictionary..I am not citing it here like I would in a academic paper because JUST LET ME LIVE FOR FIVE MINUTES OKAY). So if you're hoping for something it means you're waiting, and I don't know if waiting is ever easy. (I wrote some thoughts on that here)
But I know more than anything, that hope in Jesus means knowing this isn't the end game. And I would say that hope isn't all reasonable, in fact, I think it's wild and insane. But I think that hope walks hand in hand with faith, because faith is being sure of what we hope for…and "faith makes a fool of what makes sense."
I don't pretend to know everything about the Bible. I still think some parts are super weird (am I allowed to say that?…) But I still see the same story in different ways when I read it—a God who redeems. And I believe Jesus is exactly who He says He is.
This is the real hope: the Hope of Heaven and that when He says there will be a day where there is no more pain and no more tears, He meant it. That when He says He will come again one day, He will.
But until then, we will wait and we will long and we will Hope, because we know our Hope is not empty. It is the breath and bones of everything we are.
We will Hope even if it doesn't make sense, even when the headlines tell us we're defeated, even when we don't want to (especially when we don't want to). Because it's what we know if we know Jesus. It's impossible to be hopeless with Him.
It says they will know us by our Love, but I'm convinced they will also know us by our Hope.
So we will Hope.
Last year was the first year I really recognized Advent and made a place for it in my life. I read some short books about it and finally realized the importance of it all. I'm getting more into that stuff the older I get and the more my faith becomes my own…I'm figuring out the ways I want to carry it, the parts I want to understand deeply. The parts that are the most real to me. And Advent is one of my favorite things. I've come to hold it closely.
Advent, for the Church, is the 4 Sundays leading up to Christmas. It's a season anticipating Christmas, Jesus' birth, because It parallels the way we celebrate his birth when he came to Earth with anticipating his coming again some day.
Advent is a time of being purposeful in waiting, of remembering what it is we're waiting for: that Jesus promised He would be back, and we are waiting for Him to fulfill that promise. It's a season of longing. (My favorite EVER Advent post here by Sarah Bessey. Read it)
Advent, for me, is like one big exhale when I feel like I've been holding my breath. It's my way of flipping the bird to my anxiety and taking off the weight the year has put on my shoulders. It seems to put everything into perspective; when you remember what you're waiting for, everything else feels like it falls into place.
This year I want to be even more purposeful about it. I want to do more than read some things in my spare time. I just want to make room for it because I need to.
I googled some things about how people celebrate Advent in their home and found a bunch of references about wreaths and candle lighting and scriptures to read—mostly things to do with kids. I want to do that so badly with my own family some day—there's something about holidays and traditions that makes the ache in me even more…achy?...for the part of my life I don't have yet: the part where I am a wife and a mom. It is one of the deepest longings in me. I was daydreaming about huddling some kids around a wreath, lighting some candles, looking at my husband, talking to our kids about Hope, Love, Joy, Peace, and the man who came as a baby and became like us and how He'll come again some day. I don't have that yet (and disclaimer: I'm sure when that time comes it will be a lot less Hallmarkish than it is in my mind…I may be a dreamer but I'm not deluded), but I decided I could still have my own little Advent time. I put away my notes and sat down in my living room at my coffee table. The first Sunday of Advent you're supposed to light the purple candle on the wreath, which symbolizes Hope. I didn't have a wreath or colored candles, only a Bath & Body Works Capri Citron candle and a whole lot of mental exhaustion and neck pain from a day of studying.
So I lit the unseasonal candle and just stared at it for awhile (somewhat amused at how silly of an attempt it felt, but also thankful that Advent is more about the position of our hearts than the supplies we use). I read some scripture about Hope and promises fulfilled and the ones that will be fulfilled.
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I sat with some of the things I hope for the most, some of the deepest longings in me. And I'm thankful for a God who doesn't ask me to do anything He hasn't already done—waiting, hoping, longing, suffering, loving, obeying. He's done it all before me, so I can do it now.
I wrote down those things that I'm longing for, knowing He is the root of everything I hope for and that nothing I hope for is too great for Him.
Broken relationships to be mended.
Wisdom and discernment during the rest of grad school.
Healing from past hurts that are resurfacing.
Financial wisdom and a budget that I can stick to…ultimately to be debt free.
A husband and kids someday. Including foster parenting and adopting, even if I never get married…but first just for a healthy relationship…I guess I could start there. haha!
I also sat a long time with the other kind of longing, the deepest kind of longing—the longing we will have until He comes back.
Because these times are hard for hoping, I think.
There are refugees being turned away by countries who have the safety they seek, because we are scared of what evil they could bring that we don't already have. Mass shootings in schools and movie theaters and concert halls. ISIS. A President who tweets things my 11 year old nephew would never say.
It's all so fear-ridden that sometimes it makes me forget how to Hope for a while. I wonder what the next headline will be that could possibly be more debilitating than the current ones… and then another awful headline happens and we try to recuperate from the blow just to endure another after another.
And apart from the headlines, we have our own lives. We're muddled with grief and fear and anxiety and broken marriages and abandoned relationships and depression and financial strain and illness. Hoping can be hard.
Is it really ever easy, though? I mean, the definition of hope is to look forward with desire and reasonable confidence; feel something desired may happen (this is from the dictionary..I am not citing it here like I would in a academic paper because JUST LET ME LIVE FOR FIVE MINUTES OKAY). So if you're hoping for something it means you're waiting, and I don't know if waiting is ever easy. (I wrote some thoughts on that here)
But I know more than anything, that hope in Jesus means knowing this isn't the end game. And I would say that hope isn't all reasonable, in fact, I think it's wild and insane. But I think that hope walks hand in hand with faith, because faith is being sure of what we hope for…and "faith makes a fool of what makes sense."
I don't pretend to know everything about the Bible. I still think some parts are super weird (am I allowed to say that?…) But I still see the same story in different ways when I read it—a God who redeems. And I believe Jesus is exactly who He says He is.
This is the real hope: the Hope of Heaven and that when He says there will be a day where there is no more pain and no more tears, He meant it. That when He says He will come again one day, He will.
But until then, we will wait and we will long and we will Hope, because we know our Hope is not empty. It is the breath and bones of everything we are.
We will Hope even if it doesn't make sense, even when the headlines tell us we're defeated, even when we don't want to (especially when we don't want to). Because it's what we know if we know Jesus. It's impossible to be hopeless with Him.
It says they will know us by our Love, but I'm convinced they will also know us by our Hope.
So we will Hope.
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