The people walking in darkness have seen a great light, on those living in the land of the shadow of death, a light has dawned. Isaiah 9:2
How do we hold on, in the gathering dark, to the promises God has made us? To the hope He has given, when word has not yet become flesh, and gift is not yet given? How do we attune our ears and eyes to the signals that hope is about to arrive?
As I stood on the lawn, with my husband inside, holding a child who’d literally turned blue, I wondered, “Is this it? Did I imagine God’s promise to me?” The phones were all down. We couldn’t get through to 911. The boys who’d been throwing a football in the road with my older son were lined up on the garden wall, knowing something was wrong.
When our son was an infant he developed severe asthma and anaphylactic food allergies. We were in and out of the ER and hospital constantly. No one wanted to talk about the possibility of losing him, but we felt it hovering over us.
I prayed and prayed. I asked for a promise and God gave it to me. “Your son will live,” in John Chapter 4, where he heals the royal official’s son. I wrote it in the margin of my bible with the date. Then we went through ten more years, with the asthma getting worse until that day, the one that still haunts us. I wondered. “Did I make up that promise, just to comfort myself?”
We saw another mother, with a child as sick as ours. She said “My daughter had her worst right before she started to get better.” She’d lived through just as many years of illness, and watched her marriage break apart with the stress. Now she was smiling and confident, on the other side of the dark. I had a hard time believing the same could ever be true for us.
In the years between the Old and New testaments God was powerfully at work, but the world waited in darkness. Where are you waiting for God’s Advent? What has he promised you? Are there inklings of an imminent arrival, or are you waiting in the dark? Do you need to ask God for a promise, to carry you through?
Prayer: Dear Lord, help us to remember the dark your people suffered before the glorious light that came in Jesus. Help us not to lose hope, while we wait for you in our lives. Help us not to lose hope, while we wait for you in our world.
Hey,
I know that you are putting forward only one, personal, example here, and I know you aren’t the SLIGHTEST bit simplistic. But sometimes we believe we’ve received a promise, and then that promise fails. I’d love to see your reflections on this, either from your own life, or out of your long, deep sensitivity!
Or maybe that’s an Easter reflection…
Hi Karen,
Thanks for your thoughts. I have no easy answer for the no’s of God, or for those times we think we’ve had a promise and it all fall’s through. For me the long silences from God are harder. In our life, when Justin just kept being so ill year after year and we craved rest and peace, and only found conflict and anxious weeks of struggle. These stories for me, especially Abraham and Sarah encourage hanging on in hope. But also going after God. They questioned and complained, but kept seeking an answer. Personally, I’m still stretched and tired, and God keeps giving me abundant Yes’s in places I did not seek them, and leaving unsolved many of the things I wanted resolved. I’m learning to live in the Yes’s that I have been given, and trying to get better at resting in the mystery of the silences.
Such a good reply! I’m loving this format, BTW.