HOPE

A word based on facts, not wishes.
A word that suggests promises kept.
A word that holds longing, waiting, and confidence in only four letters.

I have been sitting with this word Hope for a couple of weeks. Trying to start my Advent blogging, I needed to figure out what it means for me in this newly-reformed landscape. Ken’s death has changed many things… And knowing and hoping and trusting that it was all under Divine Watch is part of my Hope in a God who is there.

This year, I needed to change up my holiday routines. Staying in the house felt too hard, too soon… Open to the possibility of something new, I went to the beach with two of my sisters for the week of Thanksgiving. It was brisk some days, rainy on others. But even in the chill of late autumn, there was Beauty. Quiet. Loveliness.

There was no agenda for the week. We read. Watched football. Walked on the beach. Enjoyed fresh shrimp and fish. Laughed a lot. Cried a little. I admitted to running away from the “To-Do” lists, the phone calls, the paperwork (SO MUCH paperwork!)

Wrapped in the quiet, I watched the marsh birds, quietly wading among the brown grasses. Here and there, tips of green still show. The lushness of the marsh will return in just a few short months. The flowers along the boardwalk will bloom, and Wilson’s plovers will return to their sanctuary near the sea turtle nests. But for now, on the surface, the marsh seems cold and feels barren. Without life. Purposeless.

I believe that grief is like this as well. It is a journey through barrenness, despite knowing there is “Something More” ahead. My faith is not perfect. My feelings are not always rational. But deep down, I hang on to the Creator’s vision of a new, restored world. And my world will be restored as well. Just not today…

Madeleine L’Engle wrote about the Change that returned to the world in the Incarnation. While scholars will argue that it didn’t happen in December, there is still an agreement (of sorts) that Hope was birthed into a weary world. A longing world. A hurting world.

The birth of the Christ brings us this sense of wonder, yes, of Hope for the Divine power that the Creator continually shows us, whether or not we wish to believe it exists.

But now is the hour
When I remember
An infant’s power
On a cold December.
Midnight is dawning
And the birth of wonder.

— The Irrational Season (The Crosswicks Journals) by Madeleine L’Engle

Even though it was chilly, I sat on the porch swing and traced the water moving through the salt marsh. There is life there, even when the lush greenness of summer is missing. There is raw beauty. And yes, there is Hope.

In my personal season of autumn-to-winter, I know that there will be the greening of spring again. In this moment, I embrace the seasonal changes in my life and my plans. It is enough, for now, to watch and to wonder…

For God alone my soul waits in silence, for my hope is from God.
Psalm 62:5 NRSV