Hope

“Only if we have tasted despair, only if we have known the deep sadness of unfulfilled dreams and promises, only if we can dare to look reality in the face and name it for what it is, can we dare to begin to imagine a better way. Hope is subversive precisely because it dares to admit that all is not as it should be.” - Sarah Bessey 

It isn’t a stretch to say that life is hard. Although we try our best to live happy lives, we also encounter major bumps in the road along the way. With the reality of what’s going on in the world right now alone, it is easy to lose hope. The trauma and fear we experience on a corporate level can be paralyzing, and difficult experiences and pain we experience on an individual level can match. Sometimes it can feel like all that there is in the world and in our lives is hardship. Although we still live in a world of brokenness and pain, we can still seek the light of Christ.

Isaiah 9:2 “The people walking in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of deep darkness a light has dawned.”

It’s through the darkness of life that we need a great light. The trick, as Sarah Bessey suggested in the first quote, is that to find hope, you have to look at darkness and despair honestly and head-on. Hope comes after our acknowledgement that things aren’t as they should be in our lives and in the world - but maybe things could still be good. Maybe things can work out. 

This weekend is the first Sunday of advent and is focused on something that can feel hard to come by: Hope. The hope we talk about in advent comes from the generations of God’s people that clung to hope that the Messiah would come. They had to wait for 500 years for the true source of hope, but for us that true hope is accessible today and every day.

If you have lost hope, now is the time to wait. Wait for the good. Wait for God. There are safe spaces to wait for hope -places for coziness and warmth, while you sit and rest in community, hope can sneak into your heart. A place where the weight of the darkness can be met by the hope of light. When we seek, God answers. When we ask, God hears. God meets us where we are.

May you find honest hope to carry you through the seasons of darkness.