Advent blogging with John: Waiting & Hoping

I am having a tough time getting into the Christmas spirit.  This is hard for me because this is my favorite time of year.  I find myself with a very heavy heart.  I have been weepy all week.  The reason?  We got an update on our friends son Isaiah.  He received a bone marrow transplant on Thanksgiving, and is now suffering the effects of that.  I am having a hard time understanding why.  Why is God seemingly silent, and not touching this little guy, why is he not healing him?  I pray and my prayers fall to the ground.  And I know all the Christian responses.  We live in a broken world, he will receive healing, if not here then in Heaven bla bla bla.  I’m not having a crises of faith, but I am asking God why. 

 And so this Advent season, I am waiting and hoping.  As I read through the Advent blogs this week, 2 really spoke to me, and brought me some comfort.  The first was over at Brother Maynard’s.  You can read his entire post  here.  What really caught my attention was this:

Advent is about waiting… and fortunate for us that God hears not only our groans: God actually hears us wait. As we wait, may we hear the call of Wisdom, the voice of the Word, whose people know his voice. This first week of Advent is Hope — let the hope in our waiting is the revelation of the Word; he will hear us waiting, and respond as Emmanuel, “God With Us.” We will be his people and he will be our God.

I’m not sure what about this caught my attention.  But knowing that God is hearing me wait for Him to respond to the cries of my heart, and that I can be assured that He is Emmanuel, God is with me and not just me, but that He is there with Isaiah, sharing in his suffering, crying along side his parents as they watch their precious son in pain is a comfort.. 

The second post was from Cindy Bryan.  She wrote about hope remembered, and the pain of a miscarriage.  She wrote:

I could celebrate because Christmas means hope. Hope is not a promise that prayers will all be answered with yes. It isn’t knowing that tomorrow will be better than today. Hope isn’t even the assurance that we won’t want with all our hearts to give up sometimes because life’s too hard. Jesus was born into this world—a world that can be a horrible, frightening, and sorrowful place—so we would know that God isn’t going to let us go. No matter what. We hope, because God loves us enough to go through it with us. That is reason to celebrate.

So, this season of waiting, I’m waiting for Emmanuel to return, and hoping that He will make things right.  That the sufferings of this world will end.