Journals
Journals - November 27, 2022
Early on, we woke up one morning and decided to choose hope. We realized that we could sit and spiral in the unknown, or we could make a conscious decision to live in hope every day.
This advent season feels different. As we lit the candle of hope this first Sunday of Advent, I couldn’t help but have a different experience. The hopeful waiting of the people of God has always been abstract. It’s always been something I could wax poetic about – cite scripture and talk theology about. But that longing for Christ, the erred desert of the unknown, the dry valley of bones, the oppression of a nation, was not something with which I could identify.Â
Until now.Â
"The hopeful waiting of the people of God has always been abstract. It’s always been something I could wax poetic about - cite scripture and talk theology about."
On day 158 of the NICU, we light a candle of hope. It is only because Christ our Hope has come that we can light the candle with confidence and assurance. I can wake up every morning and choose to have hope that things won’t always be like this. That a new day will rise, that a stream will sprout up in the desert, that a flower will blossom from the dead vine, that dry and brittle bones will have life again, that these tears will reap shouts of joy.Â
That life won’t always be like this,
filled with grief and unknown,
filled with days in hospital rooms and surgical suites,
filled with bad news and disappointment,
filled with longing and waiting.Â
But hope, hope will endure.Â
So, I will keep my candle lit as I anticipate the day that this hope will come to fruition. That my boy will see healing and wholeness. That I will hold him in my arms at home. That he will know the hope of Christ in his own life.Â
"I can wake up every morning and choose to have hope that things won’t always be like this."
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