Advent is for those who grieve, in a culture obsessed with happiness at all costs, especially during the Western version of the Christmas season.

 
Advent is for nurses like me and my colleagues who said one final goodbye this past weekend to a patient who’d become the sweetheart of our unit, a joyful light after an impressive recovery, then suddenly extinguished by unexpected events. We have no easy answers for complicated situations. When we sit with this kind of death – the loss of a beloved patient and the struggle not to lose hope that nothing in the world will ever feel right after the things we have seen – we don’t shift readily back to carefree mirth and simple awe of twinkling lights. We wonder if God has forgotten His people. We wonder if He will save us from our darkness. We pause, trying to hope but not entirely sure.

Advent is for people who grieve, who can’t shift readily from darkness to light because sometimes our hearts need something slower, gentler, something that gives us time and space to wrestle with our ache for hope.

Advent is for you and me.