Sunday of Hope

Today marks the first day of the Advent season for 2020.  It sure looks very different than previous years.  Usually you’d find us in the 5th row back from the front, in the pew with Mom and Dad.  Not this year, though, thanks to the pandemic and all that that means.

But I still want to mark the Sundays leading up to Christmas.  Advent is one of my favourite times of the year, I love the build up as we prepare to celebrate the birth of Christ.

Ironically, the first Sunday of Advent is the Sunday of Hope.  I find myself circling around the word Hope so much this year.  Not just today.  And not just for the cure for COVID and a vaccine.  Life hasn’t panned out the way I thought it would.  It usually doesn’t, am I right?  But through all that has been happening, I haven’t lost sight of hope.

Sometime in the past, I think as a teen perhaps, I read a scripture that has really stuck with me since then.  It’s a well known verse and yet, it still speaks to me now, perhaps even more than as a teen.

“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”

Jeremiah 29:11

We are not promised that everything will be easy.  We are not promised that it’ll be smooth sailing.  That things won’t go sideways, that what we had planned and mapped out for ourselves won’t fall apart at the seams.  ‘Cuz guess what?  It will.  It does.  It has.

But I’m okay.  I cling to that Hope that I am promised.  I have that Hope.  Maybe not for tomorrow or the next day, but at some point down the road.  I know things will change and it won’t be such a slog.  I know that the weight I’m carry on my shoulders will ease up and I will breath a little easier and sleep a little better.  That Hope is like that light at the end of the tunnel….one step and one more and then another one.

We’ve started preparing our home and for the gift giving for Christmas 2020.  The house has a warm glow that I know I will hate to pack up in January.  I have bags of goodies stashed to show a little love to some of the special people in my life.  The logistics are being taken care of.  And I’m working on preparing my heart for Christmas, too.  I don’t want to miss a bit of this.  Even if this year we can’t gather the way we usually do, I want to be truly ready for the Miracle of Christmas.

In a world full of despair, I will choose HOPE.

Warmly,

Lori