Advent has always been a really special time for me. I have great childhood memories of growing up and having special traditions during Advent. Advent is the time of preparation and and expectant waiting for the celebration of the nativity of Christ. Sometimes it gets kind of lost in the whole “celebration” of the holiday. We are supposed to be preparing for Christ–not preparing for all the commercialism. I get lost in it all. I will be the first to admit that. It is not hard. I’ve got all the emails featuring the best deals along with the Black Friday and Cyber Monday thing going at times. I don’t think that there is really anything wrong with it as long as the real focus does not get lost.
This is the first week of Advent–the candle of Hope is lit. Hope can embody many things. According to Wikipedia hope is
Hope is the emotional state which promotes the belief in a positive outcome related to events and circumstances in one’s life. It is the “feeling that what is wanted can be had or that events will turn out for the best” or the act of “look[ing] forward to with desire and reasonable confidence” or “feel[ing] that something desired may happen”. Other definitions are “to cherish a desire with anticipation”; “to desire with expectation of obtainment”; or “to expect with confidence”. In the English language the word can be used as either a noun or a verb, although hope as a concept has a similar meaning in either use.
During this time of expectant waiting and anticipation my “hope” for each of you is that you find hope of your own this season.
May your have HOPE this Advent season. Without HOPE we have nothing. I would love to read what gives you hope in the comment section today. Share your hopes with me.
11 Comments
Leave a commentGood post! Too often I feel like I use the word “hope” in a fretful way- “I hope that Amazon package comes today!” In my heart I know that “my hope is built on nothing less than Jesus blood and righteousness.”
I also have many hopes for my children and the new babies in our family.
Merry Christmas!
It has been a turbulent year and the world needs hope more than ever. A lovely message, Beth Ann.
Beautiful. My children give me hope. ❤️
Yes!
I am clinging to Hope this season. It’s not such a bad place to be, hopeful…thank you for the lovely post.
Thank you for sharing this. As you probably know, the past week has been a difficult one for my son and his dad’s side of the family. I’m praying they’ll have hope as we approach the Christmas season.
I have been praying for all of your family during this simply awful time . There are simply no words that can be said at a time like this other than I am so very sorry.
Hope, as you know, is one of my favorite words. God gives me hope. In all times, good and difficult, I know that He is with me. The people He places in my life also give me hope. So many blessings of hope.
What a lovely post for this time of year and always. I have many blessed hopes and if they are the Lord’s Will they will happen.
Wow. I don’t think people ask this kind of question with the intention of making others feel more actively unhappy than they were feeling before, but that’s an effect they can have. I wasn’t sitting here “feeling hopeless”–actually, shaking off a virus feels pleasant!–but the fact is that things aren’t going well and nothing at all seems to be a valid base to hope that they will improve.
Of course, there are narrowly limited uses of “hope,” as in “I hope you will post something pretty and nice tomorrow.”
I believe there is always hope. Even when it appears that things will never get better -/ I believe in my heart it will because I have lived that time and time again. I did not mean to make anyone be unhappy with what I wrote and am glad at least you have shaken off a virus!