Hope is Here

It is Christmas morning. We are about 20 minutes from the horde charging downstairs so there are only about 15 minutes of stillness and Silent Night left. The last 5 minutes ane listening to the kids readying themselves to charge downstairs.

But as Advent comes to a close, I am grateful for this journey of hope the last several weeks. Personally, a lot has been made clearer as I wrestled with what hope means today. One key thing came as I heard Mary's story again last night , especially her "treasuring all these things and pondering them in her heart." That feels like a sense of hope being here for her. She took everything that had happened and took it in. How it all fit, how it all would unfold, how the future would be...it may not have been fully clear. But she took it all in and treasured it. That feels hope-full to me.

Hope is here, I can see much or some of it, but it may not be fully clear. Yet I can still embrace it even without knowing the full shape. I can take all these things and ponder them in my heart. And through the uncertainty and certainty, the vagueness and the clarity, God is in it all. Hope is here. Amen.