This morning I got up in the darkness, made myself a cup of coffee and sat in my chair that looks out the window. There wasn’t much to see in the darkness of the morning, but as my eyes slowly adjusted, I started to make out the shape of the trees and bushes in our side yard.
Currently, here in the Northern Hemisphere, the nights are long and the days short. In the lead up to the winter solstice, the darkest days are upon us. We get up in the dark, try and get the kids ready for school, only to enjoy a few (seemingly) moments of daylight before the dark sky stretches over us again as we prepare supper, uber kids to activities, and settle in for the night.
As the sun slowly wakes up, I can see that the trees have given up and let their leaves saunter to the ground, and the sky has buried them beneath a thick layer of snow, a burial that I was not quite prepared for. Months ago, my view was filled with beautiful strokes of green, orange, red, and yellow, but today, it’s bland, barren, and bleak.
In the advent calendar, we find ourselves in the week of hope, something this day, and season, desperately need. It’s in moments like this that I think about where we find hope, and how it can sustain us in those long, dark nights. It’s in these moments that I realize there are two ways that we can experience hope.
One is through the things that we experience, which can be a wide array of things, so long as our eyes are open to it. I experience hope when I hear the words, “Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I will fear no evil,” or hear a gentle whisper of love through the branches of a barren tree. I experience hope when a hot cup of coffee runs down my throat in the silence and stillness of a quiet house when the kids get on the bus. I experience hope when I walk into my house and smell the savoury notes of a warm soup surrounded by laughter of those I love. I experience hope when I hear a story about some of the good people in the world helping others.
Other days, I can’t seem to manifest the majestic notes of hope by just being in the small moments. Other days, I need to generate them. I generate hope by getting up, putting on my snow gear, and going for a walk. Other days, I pick up the phone, put my airpods in my ears, and call a friend or family member to ask or offer help with a situation. There are times that I generate hope by purposely saying “yes” to something I don’t feel like doing or “no” to the thing that is putting a strain on my time.
And still, there are days that neither for bringing hope. It’s in those days that my survival is my proof that hope exists.
What about you? How do you manifest hope in difficult seasons?
In a discussion today with a former mentor, he asked how I continue to carry on given our loss. My response was, we are called to serve others, and in doing so we find the strength needed to carry on. The key is to know the limits of how much to take on, and be willing to stop when necessary.