There are many things that I find easy to judge: grace (cheap), peace (fake), positivity (toxic), and love (tainted). Hope, however, feels cruel to judge. Who am I, who only knows in part, to judge the unknown? Who am I to take away or question what someone else is desperately grasping onto? It’s like me judging the potential of a seed. Or me judging a seed that does not bloom. It is unfair to judge a seed that does not do well in its environment. It makes more sense to judge the environment that failed to nurture and care for the seed in the unique way needed for it to grow and flourish.
Over the past fifteen years, I have witnessed hope blossom in the most destitute of places. Despite its environment, it has been fragile, beautiful, and in desperate need of help—our help to nurture and coax the potential out. I have also experienced robust and flourishing hope be completely uprooted, just snatched away. My hope has been in need of help, and I have found it in Christ and through my friends. Hope, like seeds, needs help. And perhaps we are all seeds, as Julian Taylor sings, from time to time we all need some help, and what a privilege it is when we are able to provide aid to others. Imagine if each seed was nurtured and cared for as God intended. The possibilities for greatness would be endless.
This first week in Advent, may we dwell in possibilities.
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