ZPCBlog

About the author: Ashley is married to Chun and they have two boys. She has been attending ZPC since 2017 and on staff since 2022.

For in hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope, for who hopes for what one already sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.
Romans 8:24-25

Hope is: "a feeling of expectation and desire for a certain thing to happen." But the hope we have in God is "an anchor for our lives, safe and secure" (Hebrews 6:19). 

In the winter of 2009, my stepdad had a stroke. It was the first of many, many health battles and diagnoses for him. He was admitted into the Neuro ICU and there was a family waiting room, seemingly, just for us. My mom, my sisters, and I moved right into that little space. We brought pillows and blankets and snacks and magazines and books. There were recliners that we moved into a semi-circle and a TV with a DVD player. We would take turns going in to see him but we were there in that waiting room together for days and days. It was in this moment that we became a "hospital" family. To us, that means if you are in the hospital, we are in the hospital. 

We have sat, and slept, in waiting rooms and by hospital beds for surgeries big and small, the birth of babies, inpatient stays and quick little trips to the ER. We have learned whole hospital floor plans and the best meals to get in the cafeteria. When I had my son, my sister checked in at the front desk, said she was there to visit us, and the person working said "of course you are, EVERYONE else is here with her too!" 

Maybe hospital waiting rooms are sad to others but to us they hold a bit of hope. Not the kind of hope that is a wishful thought - though they hold that kind for us too. I'm talking about the kind of hope one can only find when they have faith in God, a God of such deep love, grace, and mercy. The kind of hope necessary to survive the reports from doctors and nurses and the prognosis that you know is worse than the medical team is making it sound. The kind of hope that believes in things unseen, even unthinkable, and the goodness of God against all odds. 

"Let us remind ourselves that hope wasn't really made for the joyful, the certain, the celebratory. Hope was made for the hungry. It thrives in the darkness. It is necessary precisely because of uncertainty, grief, and longing." Amanda Held Opelt 

Prayer:

Father, help us to remember, in this Advent season and beyond,  that hope may thrive in the darkness, but Jesus is the light. May we find our hope in you, for things we do not see, with a patience only you can provide. Amen. 

Share