Tag Archives: hope

The First Day of Advent:

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When Our Waiting Becomes Worship

The first day of Advent always catches me with its quietness. It doesn’t arrive with fireworks or fanfare. It begins in the dark. And maybe that’s the most honest place for us to begin, too.

Advent opens with a candle lit against the backdrop of a world that still groans. It acknowledges what we’d rather avoid: that much of life is lived in the tension between longing and fulfillment, between brokenness and promise, between what is and what we pray could be.

The Church calendar doesn’t rush us past this tension. Instead, it asks us to sit with it and to name our need. To remember that God’s people have always been shaped by waiting.

When Isaiah prophesied, “The people walking in darkness have seen a great light” (Isa. 9:2), he was speaking into a landscape thick with fear, injustice, war, and uncertainty. Their world didn’t feel that different from ours.

Advent reminds us:

  • Your longing does not disqualify you. It aligns you with centuries of God’s people who cried out for rescue.
  • Your questions do not threaten God. Even the prophets asked, How long, O Lord?
  • Your ache is not a sign of weak faith. It is the soil where hope roots itself more deeply.

The miracle of Advent is not that God asks us to pretend the darkness isn’t real. It’s that He enters it.

On the first day of Advent, we are invited to do something courageous: to look honestly at the parts of our lives that feel tender, undone, or unmet.

  • The prayers we’ve prayed for years.
  • The relationships we long to see healed.
  • The dreams we’ve held in our hands so long they’ve begun to feel heavy.
  • The grief we carry quietly because life keeps moving.

Advent says, You do not have to carry these alone. Because the story of Advent is the story of a God who draws near.

Not to the polished places. Not to the parts we’ve already fixed. But to the manger and to the low, ordinary, vulnerable place where light meets earth.

Advent waiting isn’t passive. It’s not sitting with folded hands, hoping for something to change. Biblical waiting is active and is a posture of trust, formation, and expectation.

It’s the kind of waiting where:

  • We keep lighting candles even when the night feels long.
  • We keep loving people even when it’s costly.
  • We keep practicing peace even when the world is loud with conflict.
  • We keep believing that God is faithful even when we don’t yet see the outcome.

It’s the kind of waiting that becomes worship.

Because every time we stay tender when it would be easier to harden… Every time we choose hope over cynicism… Every time we make room for God in the small, hidden corners of our lives… We are preparing a manger in our hearts for Christ to come again.

The first day of Advent doesn’t demand perfection; it invites presence.

Maybe your Advent begins not with an elaborate tradition but with a single breath and
a whispered “Here I am, Lord.”

Maybe it begins with lighting a candle at the end of a long day and remembering that God does His best work in the dark.

Maybe it begins by letting your weary spirit remember something simple but profoundly true:

The God we wait for is the God who comes. The God who saves is the God who stays. The God we long for is already moving toward us.

Advent isn’t just a season on the calendar. It’s a posture and a way of inhabiting our lives with holy expectancy.

On this first day of Advent, we proclaim a truth that steadies our souls:

Light is not fragile. Hope is not naïve. God is not far.

The same God who broke into Bethlehem’s night is breaking into ours quietly, tenderly, decisively. Not always in the ways we expect, but always in the ways we need.

As Advent unfolds, may we learn to wait with open hands, soft hearts, and a hope that refuses to dim. Because the waiting is not wasted. The darkness is not final.  And Emmanuel, God with us,  is already on His way.

When Grief Walks with Us: Faith in the Midst of Loss

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Grief arrives in its own time and in its own way.

Sometimes it shows up in the loud, obvious moments—the loss of someone we deeply loved, the funeral, the silence after the last goodbye. Other times, it slips in quietly—through a dream that won’t come true, a relationship that drifts or shatters, a life path that takes a sharp and unexpected turn. Grief doesn’t always wear black or come with casseroles and sympathy cards. Sometimes it looks like exhaustion. Sometimes it looks like a smile you force because you think you’re supposed to be “over it” by now.

Grief is part of being human. But it’s also sacred ground.

It touches not only our emotions but our very souls—our sense of purpose, our identity, our connection with God. And because of that, grief can shake our faith in ways we didn’t expect.

Some people find that grief pulls them closer to God. In the dark night of sorrow, they reach out and sense His presence more tenderly than ever before. They lean into the Psalms, pray with raw honesty, and discover a depth of intimacy they never knew was possible.

Others find that grief creates distance—questions rise up that have no easy answers:
“Why didn’t You stop this, Lord?”
“Where were You when I needed You most?”
“How can You be good and let this happen?”

And sometimes those questions feel like doubt. Sometimes they feel like betrayal. But here’s the truth that brings comfort: grief is not a failure of faith. In fact, grief is often the evidence of love, and faith is the act of continuing to breathe, to hope, to cry out—even when we don’t understand.

Think of Job, sitting in the ashes, scraping his wounds with pottery shards. He didn’t pretend everything was fine. He didn’t quote Scripture back to his own pain to silence it. He grieved. Loudly. Messily. Honestly. And God met him there—not to shame him, but to speak to him personally and powerfully.

Think of David, who poured out anguish in his psalms, his words trembling between worship and weeping.
“How long, O Lord? Will You forget me forever?” (Psalm 13:1)
David’s cries didn’t disqualify him from faith—they revealed the kind of faith that dares to speak when nothing makes sense. The kind of faith that trusts God is big enough to handle our hardest emotions.

Even Jesus wept.
He knew resurrection was coming, but He still stood at the tomb of His friend and wept. He didn’t rush past sorrow. He didn’t say, “Don’t cry—it’s all part of God’s plan.” He let the grief be real, because love was real.

And that’s the invitation we are given, too. To let our grief be real. To let our hearts break open in safe hands. To bring our aching selves to the foot of the cross and say, “Lord, here I am. I don’t know what to do with this pain, but I trust You are near.”

Everyone grieves differently.
There is no perfect timeline.
No single “right” way to do it.

Some will talk about their loss with anyone who will listen. Others will withdraw and need silence to sort through their soul. Some will cry every day. Others won’t shed a tear but will carry their sorrow deep in their bones. And all of it is okay.

We do not need to compare grief or judge how it’s unfolding in ourselves or others. God doesn’t.
He is patient with us. Gentle with us. Present with us.

Romans 12:15 says, “Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn.” That verse isn’t a call to fix people’s pain. It’s a call to be with them in it. To show up. To sit in the quiet. To let people be wherever they are without rushing them toward healing they’re not ready for.

And perhaps most importantly—it’s a reminder that God does the same for us.
He sits with us in the ashes. He holds us when we are too tired to hope. He doesn’t ask us to perform faith, or to put on a brave face. He asks us to come.

If your faith feels wobbly in this season of grief, take heart. Faith isn’t always loud or certain or filled with joy. Sometimes faith is just showing up. Sometimes it’s a whispered prayer through tears. Sometimes it’s letting others believe for you when you can’t quite believe for yourself.

Your grief doesn’t disqualify your faith.
Your sadness doesn’t separate you from God.
Your questions don’t scare Him.

He is the Shepherd who walks with us through the valley of the shadow—not around it. Not over it. But through it.

So if you are in that valley right now, be gentle with yourself. Let your grief take its time. Let your faith breathe, stretch, rest. Trust that God is not waiting on the other side of your sorrow—He is right here, in the midst of it, still loving you, still holding you, still calling you His.

Grief may change us. But it doesn’t remove us from God’s love.
It may strip us bare, but even there, in that vulnerable place, we are known. We are seen. We are carried.

And we are never alone.

Ashes and Altars: The Holy Courage of Ukraine

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“He will give them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, and a garment of praise for a spirit of despair.”
— Isaiah 61:3

There is a fierce, sacred resilience in the soul of Ukraine—a resilience not born overnight, but carved through generations of sorrow, hope, and unyielding faith.

To understand the anguish of today, we must first remember the long ache of yesterday.

For seventy years, Ukraine lived beneath the heavy shadow of Soviet rule. Life under the Union was a life of scarcity, suspicion, and silence.
Faith was not free; it was feared.
Church doors were barred shut. Bibles were banned.
Believers gathered not in grand cathedrals but in the hidden places—the basements, the forests, the still corners where prayers could be whispered without being overheard.

It was dangerous to belong to Christ.
And yet, the Church lived.

Even the common rhythms of daily life bore the brand of oppression.

  • No private shops to build dreams.
  • No market stalls to trade goods with a neighbor.
  • No commerce that was not state-sanctioned and state-controlled.

Every salary was the same, a dull echo of effort with no reward.
Every home bore the same government-issued furniture, stripping homes of personality, families of dignity. Creativity was suspect. Ownership was dangerous.

If you needed bread—or sugar, or a pair of worn boots—you stood in line.
And waited.
And hoped the supply would not run dry before your turn.

There was a hunger deeper than the stomach’s ache.
A hunger for freedom.
A hunger for the dignity of choice.
A hunger for God.

And even so—the Spirit was never absent.

Faith took root underground like seeds buried deep in winter, hidden but not dead. Believers memorized Scripture because paper could betray them. They sang songs without raising their voices. They built altars in their hearts where no regime could reach.

This is the soil from which Ukraine has grown—a people who know what it is to suffer, to endure, and still to believe.

And now, once again, the land is groaning.

The war that erupted in 2022 has carved deep wounds into the body of Ukraine.

  • Cities once bustling with life now lie in ruins.
  • Families scatter like leaves before a bitter wind.
  • Children learn the sound of air raid sirens before the sound of bedtime stories.

The trauma is not just physical. It is spiritual. It is generational.

Grandparents who once whispered prayers under Soviet rule now whisper them again, this time for sons and daughters gone to the front lines.
Mothers rock children to sleep in underground shelters.
Fathers build barricades from the ruins of their own homes.

Still—hope presses through the cracks like green shoots after a fire.
Still—they endure.

They rebuild gardens in the rubble.
They gather for worship in the ruins.
They teach their children to sing songs of hope, even when the skies are heavy with smoke.

The need for peace—and a swift and lasting victory—is desperate.
Each day of delay deepens the wound. Each moment of continued violence hardens the soil where healing should already be taking root.

As followers of Christ, we are not called to observe from a distance.
We are called to carry the burdens of the suffering (Galatians 6:2).
We are called to defend the oppressed (Isaiah 1:17).
We are called to move toward the broken places with love in our hands and hope in our hearts.

Ukraine’s suffering is not foreign to the heart of God.
It must not be foreign to ours.

We must:

  • Remember.
  • Pray.
  • Give, advocate, go when called.
  • Hold the line of hope when the battle is long.

The people of Ukraine know what it is to sing hymns when the chains rattle loudest.
They know what it is to hold the light when the night is thick with fear.
They know what it is to build altars among the ashes.

And now, as they fight once more for the dignity of freedom, may we be the ones who lift their arms when they falter (Exodus 17:12).
May we be the ones who stand beside them until the day peace reigns over their beloved land.

God is not silent in Ukraine.
Even now.
Especially now.

Through us—His Church—may the people of Ukraine know:

They are seen.
They are loved.
They are not forgotten.

Lord, make beauty from these ashes.
Bring healing to this land.
And find us faithful, bearing Your light into the darkest valleys.