ADVENT & OUR JOURNEY OF REDEMPTION
My whole world as a Mama was shattered with a phone call while I was 1,300 miles away, learning about childhood trauma and how to train parents with kids from hard places. My kids became those kids. I became that parent. It was not a distant idea, it was now written into the pages of our life, my kid’s life.
Advent is a season of longing, not just for Christmas day, but the return of Christ. The recognition that our broken world desperately needs a King to restore it. The season of waiting, of expectant hope that Jesus is coming to redeem all things. My family has experienced the raw meaning of the Advent season, birthed out of literal groans of pain, lament, grief, waiting and longing for Jesus to redeem all that was broken in our lives. Through this season of raw lament and grief I am clutching desperately to the hope, peace and joy that is found only in the love of Jesus.
Redemption…
Sometimes we feel like this can be attained in a moment, an experience, a one-time thing. Redemption though, is a process, a journey, an ever-evolving experience. Redemption is not just a season it’s a lifelong journey. Advent reminds us of that.
I have been waiting for redemption since the moment my husband first called me and told me the most horrible news of our life to this day. Through each step in our journey, I have been expectantly and desperately waiting for Jesus to redeem this mess. I am desperately waiting to see him pick up each piece of what has been shattered and redeem it. My hope is desperate, courageous and angry at the injustice. I find peace in what I know he has already promised he will do.
“These things I have spoken to you, that in Me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.”
John 16:33
I experience joy every time I see Jesus take a piece of this story, heal it and redeem it.
The Christmas season of 2017 was filled with so many possibilities, so much hope of what we thought our future family would look like. We knew the future would be a roller coaster, as we had said yes to fostering a teen. He slept over for the first time on Christmas Eve and never went back to where he came from. I thought he’d never leave. I thought this was forever. I was so hopeful in our yes. Yes, to one more child, yes to foster care, yes to potential adoption, yes to all of it. (More on that Yes here)
In Christmas of 2018, as I unwrapped our Christmas decorations, I came across the stocking we had bought the year before. Later I unwrapped the ornament that had been selected and placed on our family tree. A family tradition that we eagerly welcomed him into, as he we opened our family to him. Now in 2018, nothing looked like the year before. Everything had changed. I had expected back in 2017 that everything would change, but not like this; not so utterly and completely broken.
Redemption.
How could God redeem this? I had lost hope, as I watched my little boy descend into a chaos of emotions and fear. Where was peace and joy to be found while the foster teen we had said yes to still had no family? Where was the joy while are family had suffered so much injustice? Did God truly love us, this world, this mess we find ourselves in?
I will be sharing pieces of our story of redemption in the next four weeks of Advent:
Hope, Peace, Joy, Love……
Father is a title layered with complexity. Some of us have great fathers who love us and keep us safe. Others have had different experiences. Despite this reality, Isaiah describes the promised Messiah, Jesus, as an “Everlasting Father.”