Hope
Lately I have been reading some of the old Christmas carols and I am finding the choice of words to be wonderful. So strong, so precise and so deeply powerful in what they mean, so full of hope for a weary world and hope is something we all need so very much. Hope felt, hope realized, hope anticipated because we live in an unjust world and many people see more than a fair share of unjustness done towards them, but there is hope. Jesus came to bring that for us.
"Long lay the world in sin and error pining, til he appeared and the soul felt it's worth."
There is hope for the young girl who was home when her baby sister died and she got blamed for it. Hope even when a few months later she lost her grandmother too. Hope that says you will be okay. I will hold your heart and I know your tears.
And there is hope for a mom caught up in a legal affair because someone was harassing her and she's facing imprisonment for needing to pay the fine. Hope that the people who make up the church are walking alongside her so she and her children do not go to jail.
There is hope for a mom watching her daughter continuing her struggle with AIDS in a hospital bed. Again. Not knowing if this time she'll have to say goodbye or if she'll pull through again. And hope for her children and family waiting and wondering in different parts of the country if one day they'll just get that phone call that changes everything.
Hope which came subtly into the darkness and said, see I make all things new. "Where meek souls can receive him still the dear Christ enters in."
There is a hope which answers a 14 year old's desire because all she wants is to learn about Jesus. She doesn't care about anything else. She just wants to know God.
O Holy Child of Bethlehem, descend to us we pray;
cast out our sin and enter in; be born in us today.
We hear the Christmas angels the great glad tidings tell;
O come to us, abide with us, Our Lord Emmanuel!
"Long lay the world in sin and error pining, til he appeared and the soul felt it's worth."
There is hope for the young girl who was home when her baby sister died and she got blamed for it. Hope even when a few months later she lost her grandmother too. Hope that says you will be okay. I will hold your heart and I know your tears.
And there is hope for a mom caught up in a legal affair because someone was harassing her and she's facing imprisonment for needing to pay the fine. Hope that the people who make up the church are walking alongside her so she and her children do not go to jail.
There is hope for a mom watching her daughter continuing her struggle with AIDS in a hospital bed. Again. Not knowing if this time she'll have to say goodbye or if she'll pull through again. And hope for her children and family waiting and wondering in different parts of the country if one day they'll just get that phone call that changes everything.
Hope which came subtly into the darkness and said, see I make all things new. "Where meek souls can receive him still the dear Christ enters in."
There is a hope which answers a 14 year old's desire because all she wants is to learn about Jesus. She doesn't care about anything else. She just wants to know God.
O Holy Child of Bethlehem, descend to us we pray;
cast out our sin and enter in; be born in us today.
We hear the Christmas angels the great glad tidings tell;
O come to us, abide with us, Our Lord Emmanuel!
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