Your Whispered Hope Is Enough

A short advent reflection on hope

Advent met me in a major autoimmune relapse. After 2 years of difficult recovery, recalibrating my life, and relearning my body since the last one, it caught me off guard. I’d forgotten the frailty, the weakness, the fatigue. I’d forgotten the oxymoronic stark clarity of uncertainty, the definitive knowledge that “I’m not OK.” I’d forgotten how still, hard, and cold fear can rest in your belly, settling in you, reminding you that you are finite, breakable, and far from in control of your very alive-ness.

It is here that Advent met me. And it is here that I am meeting it.

From this place, it is unsurprising that the first word and theme of Advent- hope - would be the one that is bringing me pause. Understanding hope when you actually need it is a radically different pursuit than when all is well, or things are looking up. As Tim Mackie of the BibleProject explained in their Advent podcast (exploring biblical definitions of hope,) hope is not optimism.

“You can have a hope built up because you look at a set of circumstances and you’re like ‘yeah, I think we’re trending in the right direction, and it’s the one that I like, so I’m hoping for that outcome!’”

That is optimism.

Contrastingly, Biblical hope

“is something the Biblical authors want us to sustain regardless of the circumstances. Or actually, in the face of Goliath standing in front of you.”

Biblical hope is something that lives in the darkness. That beholds the broken, the disappointment, the reasons to be afraid, the reasons to give up, and can somehow glimpse something beyond this moment. And I’m learning that the ability to see beyond is gifted, given, imparted, not mustered up from within oneself. Hope is our vision of God. However clouded by our circumstances, hope is believing that He is still there beyond them. Hope says the truth is still the truth even when it doesn’t feel true in the moment. Or, we whisper it.

Quiet Hope is Still Hope

The problem is, we want our hope to be loud. Often, we only detect hope in our hearts when it feels bold and defiant. When it feels like the roar of a lion tearing out of our lungs. We note hope within ourselves when it stands up tall, confronting the threat of darkness like a protective older sibling defying a schoolyard bully on our behalf. We want it to be audacious.

But in reality, hope often feels a lot flimsier than that. It is softer, a dare to whisper what is true in the face of what is real. It is a quiet thought on a sleepless night that says “morning will come,” because we know that is all morning knows to do. In reality, in the dark, hope rests in our breath. In the inhalation and exhalation that carry us to the next moment. Hope is in our rising anyway, in our whispered “yes” to the life we’ve been given. Hope is timid when we’re in the thick of pain, trial, or storms.

I want you to know that that is hope.

That hope counts, too.

Quiet hope is still defiant.

Your quiet hope is enough.

Your whispered hope is enough.

A Benediction

May the God of all hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in Him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.

Romans 15:13