H.O.P.E.

Sometimes you just need...to walk in hope. Tonight is the first night of advent and to be transparent my family spent much of the day living out our hope we ended up deciding at about 9pm (after tucking the little one in) that God wouldn't be too mad at us if we waited until tomorrow night to do our reading and light our first candle. Now back to the topic at hand. Hope...the first night of Advent concentrates on the hope of a Savior. The hope that the promise God made to his people would be revealed; an answer to their prayers. What remains of those emotions whether you are a believer or not, is that despite the commercialism of this sacred holiday no matter what...there is hope in the air. I am so thankful for hope. I am thankful for the season in which Gods people only had hope. The season before the miracle, before the light. I am thankful for the time spent in the desert, for the times of oppression, for the moments when the only thing that could carry them through was hope. The truth is, there are far more moments in life spent waiting on an action, a deliverer, the manifestation of hope. So for me, those times become really paramount in the coming of a miracle. In my life there have been many deserts, years of waiting, holding out hope that God was and is who says he is. Hope was my beacon, my comfort, my friend, and at times my foe. In the good moments it was easy to tie the idea of hope around my neck as a reminder of Gods goodness and his promise. I didn't need a sign because my faith rested firmly in the unseen hope I was sure was coming. In the moments of weakness where I spent my time grumbling in my own desert, sure that God must have stopped leading, stopped speaking, stopped loving. Those moments of dark where light seemed impossible...hope was the small spark, the fleck of beauty in a sea of coal. The tiny reminder to keep going, keep moving, keep swimming even when sinking seemed like a relief. Hope was found in the moments where the sting of goodbyes mingled with the words of grateful mothers holding their children whispering promises of forever, promises that were not mine to whisper...yet still hope found me. This year, hope didn't just find me, wasn't there just to remind me of the coming miracle, this year...Hope came to stay. When we got the phone call almost 2 years ago for our sweet baby girl; I was delighted to hear that her middle name was Hope, delighted and not surprised in the least. God brought us to one another. Her name a reminder of who he is...and who he will be. Tonight I think about her first mama, and her choice for her name. I am sure that when she chose her name, Hope meant something special to her. While I will not try and put to words emotions and feelings that are not mine to share. What I do know to be true is that her mama had a hope for a future, one that didn't come to fruition. As a mama of children who I will not have the privilege of watching grow up there is a part of me that truly understands those emotions and the loss involved. So tonight I am praying for Hope to come to our sweet girls first mom. I am praying for her future, for her journey. I am so blessed to get my answer, but my yes came at the cost of someone else's no. Some would say that our girl is far better off, safe, where she should be, and they would be right. Yet in moments of loss reason doesn't matter. The justifications don't erase the loss. So on this night that represents the hope that is found in merely expecting God to do and act in the way he promised I am praying for a miracle. I am praying that the hope we have in expecting a Savior would be evident to our sweet girls first parents. That his hope would find them, claim them, and continue to remind them that there is a future and it is good. Tonight I get to hold a peace of hope in my arms. Soon very soon, her name will change to reflect our forever....even then...Hope will remain.