It might feel scary

My friend recently shared her testimony at church. The service was on YouTube, and she sent me a link so I could hear her speak.

After I'd finished listening to her piece, the link stayed active in my YouTube library, and when I was searching for music to listen to while I worked on my kitchen, I saw the video and decided to listen to the rest of the service.

I was mixing up waterproof concrete, working on my own artsy/industrial style backsplash. (I do not want to be working on my own artsy/industrial style backsplash. But I am. We paid for a full kitchen 3 years ago, and our contractor lost our money in his addictions. So we have been living in this unfinished state and it has been breaking my heart away in chunks. Our brief renovation has turned into a massive part of our lives - a full half of Pascal's existence - and the things we have completed since then keep breaking down too. New stove. New sink. The van. Even my foot has decided to break down.  Anyway, I'm not telling you this because I want to dwell on grief, but because I want you to know the frustration and resentment that was colouring my mental space when I was listening to this message. I was not feeling hopeful or glad.)

Suddenly this sentence sliced through my fog.

 

It might feel scary to let yourself believe something again, but that's what Christmas is.  

I backed it up and listened to the message again. The preacher was speaking about hope. 

Before Jesus was born, the Hebrew people had been waiting to hear from God for over 400 years. This God, the one who spoke the world into existence, who spoke in storms and stillness, spoke through prophets and donkeys and little slave girls, spoke to kings and judges and embittered concubines ... This God of theirs who speaks and speaks and speaks hadn't spoken to them collectively for over 

Four

Hundred

Years.

Fear not, the angel told Zechariah, the angel told Mary, the angel told Joseph, the angels told the shepherds; He is with us.

They needed to be reminded - and I need to be reminded - not to fear the believing. Because it's scary to believe, and it's especially scary to believe after hope deferred. (Hope deferred makes the heart sick, says Proverbs 13:12. That's exactly how it feels. Heartsick.)

It might feel scary to let yourself believe something again, but that's what Christmas is.

And these people who had waited and waited and waited for a word from God? They got their word.  The very Word they had longed for came into the world and cried and loved and spoke -- spoke to priests and prostitutes, fishermen and widows, people of all types, rich and poor and eager and reluctant and fearful and brave.  And those who believed were filled with joy.

Hope deferred makes the heart sick, says Proverbs 13:12, but a longing fulfilled is the tree of life.

It is scary to dare to hope - it is scary, and hard, to stand in the middle of broken dreams and fruitless work and choose to hope, anyway. It might feel scary to let yourself believe something again, but that's what Christmas is.

Merry, brave Christmas, dear ones.

Xo.