Keeping Hope while Waiting

I don’t know anyone who finds waiting easy. Sure some have more patience than others, but especially when times are hard, waiting can seem impossible. But when times are dark there is something worse than waiting for a light and that is not having hope of a light to wait for.

I did not grow up in a liturgical church so Advent is something I have only really been exposed to in the last five years. It did not really hit home with me until last year when I really began to appreciate the time of remembering what it was like to wait in the darkness for the coming Messiah. Before last year I really just understood it as a time of remembering the darkness in the waiting so that the light of Christmas shone even brighter. Last year I really comfortable in an Advent season of darkness and waiting, because I was in a personal season of darkness and waiting with so much of my hope wrapped up in being reunited with my husband in the resurrection. Today, I realized Advent is so much more.

It’s been a particularly difficult few months for me and that is saying something since my husband died a year and a half ago. My solo responsibilities coupled with my grief are truly overwhelming. But today Hope returned. That hope is pretty much rooted in the belief that it is not always going to be this way and until it changes God will give me the strength to endure.

Advent isn’t just about waiting. Advent is about hope. People were not just living in darkness. They were living with hope that they would be delivered.

Advent isn’t just when we remember waiting. It is when we remember that we are waiting with a hope that will be fulfilled.

I’m breathing better this evening. There is a pressure that has been lifted. I have hope that it will not always be this way. That hope puts the darkness of today in perspective. God gives me the strength to handle to darkness of today, not the darkness extended to a never changing future.

My prayer for those in the toughest of times is that they will be able to grasp the hope that life will not always be this way, that a light is coming that is so bright it will cause the darkness of today to become a distant memory.