by Nancy Staton

I realized as I was thinking about an advent devotion for this year’s season that I have used the word “hope” more flippantly than I should. I seem to always say, “Hope you have fun. Hope your new shoes fit.”

That is all good, but “ hope” is a deeper emotion than that. In a year like 2020 when globally, so many people have become sick, continue to get sick, and so many have died and continue to die from COVID-19, “hope” becomes more. This is a year when people have lost jobs and businesses have failed. More people are now facing homelessness and food insecurity than at any time in recent history.

We are all experiencing harder times which we have not known before. Isolation can be the most difficult condition for many of us. Hope carries us forward. If we lose hope then we lose the will to live. Hope is life.

Each year during the Advent Season, we celebrate with anticipation, the reminder that God is with us. We anticipate the coming of the Christ Child, the one sent by God to reclaim us as his own. This HOPE is eternal.