It's been a challenging season. If you have young kids like me, maybe you too have experienced one sickness after another. I don't think we've been healthy since September and I’m starting to think we won’t be healthy again until June. I feel a bit like I am limping to the end of the year, weary from 5 years of not sleeping well (my oldest is 5), the chaotic toddler emotions that fill my home, and the weightier things that friends are experiencing around me.
In a book I read recently, the characters are in the middle of an epic journey. Having navigated tragic backstories, making their way through one challenge only to be met with another, somewhere in the middle of much hardship, one character asks the other, "What if we go on, only to more pain and despair?" The other, smiling at his question, replies, "Then it is not the end."
It's a phrase I keep thinking about, repeating to myself these days: this is not the end. When I'm tempted to believe I will never sleep past 5:30am, that these dark and dreary days are all there is, or that I will always be struggling through the same sins: this is not the end.
I'm not good with suspense and will usually read the end of the book before I get there, sometimes reading the end of the book several times, like whenever the action gets too intense or the characters are all sad so that I can put it down and go to sleep knowing it's going to be okay. We know what the end of this story is: eternity with Jesus has been bought by his precious blood.
Our hope is a sure and steady one. If today there is still pain and despair, we can be confident this isn't all there is. We can say with the prophet: "Rejoice not over me, O my enemy; when I fall, I shall rise; when I sit in darkness the LORD will be a light to me." (Micah 7:8)
This advent season, we wait with hope. We will rise. We will be victorious. As we make our way through dark days we do so with our Light, Emmanuel, right here with us. I pray this season you are full of hope not in your circumstances but in Jesus, that leads to deep and enduring peace. This is not the end.
Jesus, thank you for the hope I have in you. Help me today to look beyond my circumstances, to set my hope in eternity with you. I need you to be a light to me. Sustain me when I feel like giving up; protect me from despair. Encourage me with your presence. I want to enjoy your glorious, peace-filled light all of my days. In Jesus’ name I pray, amen.
Additional Resources: How Emotions Can Strengthen Your Faith and Does God Break People On Purpose?