Advent: Believe, Again.

A story of hopelessness, a dream and a miracle.

In the few weeks before Spring, 2017 I found myself leaning against the gloss-peach pantry cupboards of my kitchen, telling Katie that I’d finally lost hope.

We were years into struggle. We had no money, my health was wrecked, and we were at the end of ourselves. I hadn’t been able to buy my own children Christmas presents since 2015 and there wasn’t any sign of relief. Years had gone by without diagnosis, and without any sense of any change at all.

I was exhausted. All my charismaticism had emptied itself into a new reality; prayer really does go unanswered.

It was horrible to speak those words, to tell Katie that I was empty of optimism, that finally I’d no belief in change left in me. I was scared to admit that I could no longer believe tomorrow could be better.

I did say it, and so did she. All we could do was stare at each other blankly, wishing the other could carry hope for us, knowing it was too much to ask.

Then, I had a dream.

In it I stood in front of those very same peach pantry doors and watched as copious amounts of seeds exploded out of the bottom shelves. In shock I yelled out to Katie for help as I rushed to hold it back, pushing the cupboards closed to stop the flow. But within seconds I could feel grain hitting the back of my neck. The middle section was now overflowing too! I stood back in wonder as finally, from the very top of the cupboards flours of all kinds poured out into the kitchen.

I stood paralysed by awe. Then I woke.

And when I did, a faint whisper of hope entered the depth of my soul. Were things about to change?

Less than a month later, they had. Within a fortnight of the dream I received an email from a beautiful family who ran an organic food co-op. They’d been praying about where to give the tithe they’d been saving up. They’d heard of my health issues through my ministry, knew how expensive the food I needed was, and offered to supply our groceries for a year.

I kid you not, two weeks later we had so much food the bottom pantries wouldn’t close. And what were they full of? Pumpkin seeds, flours, tomatoes, gluten free pastas, you name it. We couldn’t fit all the food in our pantry, it was packed. It just sat there on the floor.

I don’t know the mechanics of miracles. I really don’t. For every miracle story I have there are plenty of stories of unanswered prayers and long nights. The very nature of miracles is that they’re not in our control.

But I know this, they exist.

I post the above prayer about Christ arriving every year, and yet every year it hits me anew.

Maybe it’s because the older I get the harder it becomes to believe in the miracles I so deeply want to see. The miracles of inner healing in life-old places within me. The miracle of a fully healed body. The miracle of being, in God, where I ache to be.

I feel worn down by repetitive behaviours and my pains. By wars and division, by a broken church, by unhealed relationships. There are often little rooms of hopelessness within me about this or that. Rooms I don’t consciously label as “miracle free”, but are left out of my prayers and longings because they simply feel too hard.

Time can taunt childlike faith in that way. We all face spiritual entropy without an antidote. Unanswered prayers stay with us as unanswered questions in our hurting places, threatening to weigh down divine anticipation.

But then comes Advent.

Advent rips me out of it every year. It shocks me and demands my attention. It forces miracles, great ones, right into view again and cries “reckon with me, the Christ!”.

Advent reminds me that hundreds of years of “unanswered” prayers can’t stop God, that all prayer is heard, and stored, as the currency of future hope. It reminds me of that hopeless day leaning against empty kitchen cabinets, and I weep.

I weep because Advent doesn’t care for my faithlessness, it’s a fact, it will miracle me anyway. And I long for miracles.

And so I’m remembering. I’m remembering this advent that God has punctuated history with his arriving, and he will do it again. I’m allowing myself to be confronted by it, to be shocked out of my malaise, to be reminded of hope.

The antidote to the spiritual entropy that threatens us all isn’t willpower, it’s Christ power, and the acceptance that we can’t stop miracles. Even with faithlessness. And if we can’t stop them, we can keep watch for them, especially in ours and the worlds darkest places.

Christ is arriving to me. I know he is. I may be in some darknesses, so may the world, but we can’t stop him.

I’m opening myself again this December to believe the unbelievable. That dead bones can live. That God is in the midst, that miracles can and will happen.

May you believe, trust , and give yourself the
permission to hope outrageously again in the
magnitude of God’s ability to affect great change
in our world, embracing not only the event, but
the very spirit of Advent.

Amen.

Have you experienced a miracle (small or great) of some kind this year? I’d love to hear it in the comments below…

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A Practice (if you’re interested).

Why not take 10 minutes this week to remember a moment in your life where God broke through. It could be an answer to prayer, the moment his light first filled your heart, a need met that you hadn’t even prayed about. If you have a journal, write out all you can remember there, reminding yourself of the story.

As you do try to remember how it felt, the relief, the joy, the surprise and allow yourself to feel it again.

Hold that hope, that feeling with God, in your area of greatest need today.