We Hope ...

**Sit quietly, eyes closed and in silence for one minute before reading.**

    We begin the Advent season with Hope. We hope because we need it. We hope because sometimes that is all we can do. We can hope because our hope is based on a person, on Jesus, the one who's coming we prepare for.

    Even as our hope is based on the love, life, death and resurrection of Christ we still sometimes struggle.

    Hope often wanes when we worry, when we look towards the future and see no way out, as we experience pain and loss. Hope wanes as we see and suffer injustices. Hope struggles as it seems there is more evil than good in the world.

    Hope requires waiting, it requires trust and it demands blindness. Hoping is not easy ... yet it is true.

    It is true because it is found in a person, it is found in Christ whose coming we celebrate and whose second coming provides us a vision of re-creation, all things made new, our hope being fulfilled.

    So I invite you to Hope. Hope in the one that can fulfill all our hopes and leads us to live lives of hope.

**Sit again in silence for as long as is available to you.**