Hope for the Dreamers (an Advent reflection)

Advent is a season of expectant waiting – of hope for something to come. And this year, Advent has me reflecting on the idea of hope.

I have always been a dreamer, imagining what the future might hold. I can still remember almost 30 years ago now, while still in college, driving back from a trip to North Carolina with my then-fiance/now-husband, talking about our “dream” house with a music room (all white with black and red accents and a beautiful grand piano), game room (those Applebee’s chandeliers and Coca-Cola memorabilia around our pool table), and a huge wrap-around porch with plenty of rocking chairs. It was ok that those dreams never came true - they were just dreams, after all (and not even necessarily our "style" anymore). And they were only the beginning of the dreaming. Part of the fun of dreaming is that you never know - maybe one day something might really happen. 

Growing up I was not often able to be around my grandparents because we didn’t live close to them. We only saw them once a year, if at all. So I always dreamed that my kids would live closer to their grandparents – and at first they did. But we gradually moved away as ministry led us to new churches. At 2-4 hours drive (depending on the grandparent), we were able to be together for holidays and a couple other times a year, which was more than I had as a child. But I still struggled with jealousy for the families at our church who lived in the same town as their extended families. And I dreamed of the future when my own grandchildren would perhaps live close to me and, like our friends, the family would be together for Sunday dinners and kids’ ballgames.

Our move to southern Indiana brought a lot of new dreams with it. I began to dream that we would settle down and stop moving (it was our 8^th move in 12 years). We would put down some roots in a beautiful rural area. Be in one church for the rest of our lives. Have a place the kids would call home and want to return to, even after they were grown. As adults, they’d have their own lives, probably not right next to us, but close enough to visit regularly. Maybe we’d eventually get that house on some property with woods and a stream to wade in. The kids would be too old, but the grandkids would get to enjoy it. I let myself dream. Maybe it never would have happened, but there was always the hope that it could.

And then we moved literally half-way around the world, taking our children far from their grandparents. Now there wouldn’t even be an annual visit. And those dreams of the future with the family all living near each other faded into the reality of my own children graduating from high school and moving across the world from me.

When we moved overseas, I had to face the truth that many things I had always expected for the future would now most likely never happen. Instead of family living close together, we were being spread around the world. Rather than purchasing some land in the country with room for kids to go exploring, we sold our home and moved to a city in a tropical country where we live in someone else’s house and don’t even really have a yard to speak of.

One by one, all of my beautiful dreams crumbled. And it left me not wanting to dream any more. Why place my expectations and hopes on anything that could so easily change, leaving me disappointed once more?

I wonder if that is how Israel felt, waiting for the Messiah. Did the beautiful words of expectation and hope from the prophets fall flat, seeming like hopeless dreams that would never be fulfilled? After all, Proverbs tells us that “hope deferred makes the heart sick” (13:12)

But the truth is that hope was born. The promised dream became a reality. And although in some ways, it didn’t arrive as expected (a long wait... a tiny baby… a gentle healer… a suffering servant… a risen savior), it still came in all its glory – a much grander fulfillment than anyone could have hoped for. While the prophets and people of the Old Testament awaited a deliverer to set them free from the tyranny of the enemies surrounding them, hope arrived in the very presence of God – Emmanuel – come to deliver the people from the tyranny of their sinful selves and offer them the hope of eternal relationship with God.

And now, in this season of Advent, this time of expectant waiting, we can look on the dream-come-true and have hope to continue dreaming. Because one day, the grandest of all of our expectations will come to fruition – the hope of heaven. The writer of Hebrews tells us that “God has given both his promise and his oath…therefore, we who have fled to him for refuge can have great confidence as we hold to the hope that lies before us. This hope is a strong and trustworthy anchor for our souls” (6:18-19).

The truth is, I have no idea what my future on this earth holds. But I don’t have to be afraid to dream, because the most magnificent dream of all is a promise I can count on, given by the One who is faithful and true. This is the promise of Advent.