This was first posted on December 9,2012.
Taken from The Mosaic Bible:
Advent is a time of hope; the spirit of eager anticipation pervades the senses. Even in the refuge of your own home, the season is inescapable as carolers dismiss the social inhibitions that dominate the other eleven months of the year. But when tragedy, depression, or even loneliness steals your joy, you can almost resent the hope that others have.
When we think our hope unfulfilled, we adjust our expectations. We take on new causes, reconsider our optimism, or sometimes become leery of new endeavors. We can even become angry with God, feeling desolate or abandoned. But even if we lose our hope in God, he will never give up on us.
God doesn’t share our limited perspective, and that is one of the reasons that the hope of Advent isn’t dependent on how we are feeling. It can be comforting to rely on the one who give us hope, even when the light of that hope doesn’t seem to penetrate our temporary darkness.