I chose HOPE as my word for 2022. Usually I have more confidence in my choice, and this year, something in my gut said, “Pick it!”, but it felt so…off. Uncomfortable. I think I’ve had such distaste for hope because it requires a tolerance for uncertainty. I like tidy, sure things. (But I went with it anyway, because my gut is very loud sometimes.) I’ve been thinking about hope a lot since I chose it—reading devotionals and journaling about it—and I realized that this is a word I say all the time. But I have been using it so very carelessly. When I say, “I hope so,” which I so often do, I almost never have the confidence, belief, or trust that the word signifies. When I say, “I hope so,” what I actually mean is, “I wish.” When I say, “I hope so,” what I actually mean is, “Maaaaybe, but probably not.” When I say, “I hope so,” I actually mean, “This is unattainable.” When I say, “I hope so,” I actually mean, “Gosh, this would really be nice, but I don’t expect it to actually happen.” And honestly, I almost never expect it to actually happen. Hope is calling out blessings with confidence before they happen, and I’m so afraid of being wrong that I doubt. So every time I say the word “hope,” it’s sprinkled with the dust of my own insecurities. This lazy, ironic usage has robbed the word of its true power for me. My doubt has rendered hope impotent. I’ve been using “hope” as a throwaway word, and that needs to change. When I think about instances where I actually experience hope, I think about foster care. Foster care is all about hope. (My daughter’s first name means hope, and when we adopted her, she chose Hope as a new middle name.) When I see the kids we’ve fostered navigating the challenges of adulthood in ways that make me proud, I have hope. When we can look back on past successes, that gives us hope. It is easier to have hope in retrospect, but that’s not what hope is for. Hope is for now. Hope is present condition regarding a future desire. It’s about something we don’t have yet, and waiting for it with patience and confidence. We can look to the past for evidence of hopes fulfilled, but hope isn’t about the past. Hope is about holding on in this moment. Hope is about having faith in possibility. It’s a relentless belief that things will work out, even if they don’t work out in the way you thought they would. Hope means infinite possibilities…but it often means letting go of the possibilities you imagined. This has been a sticking point for me. I don’t like the idea of letting go of the possibilities I imagined, especially for my own life. (I have had oh-so-many shattered plans.) And hope requires us to dwell in a place of uncertainty, and that’s just hard. I like plans and order and predictability. But hope is the plan. There’s a tradeoff there: I have to exchange my tidy plans for the sprawling, inclusive possibility of hope. Things might not turn out how I imagined, but hope trusts that things will still be good regardless of the outcome. So this year, I am learning to use the word “hope” with more care. I am learning how to hold hope in this moment. I am learning to dwell in possibility. It’s uncomfortable and strange, but that’s where the hope lies. Can I do this? I hope so.
0 Comments
It’s Advent—the season of preparation and anticipation. I love Advent, maybe as much as Christmas. I love the whole month of December, actually, and I love spending it in celebration. I love the decorating, the baking, the weather changes. I love making lists and checking them twice. I love the music and the good cheer. I love shopping for gifts and wrapping them and placing them beneath the tree. I love this sort of preparation. I love having everything ready for the celebration to come. Maybe it’s the control freak in me, I don’t know, but I love feeling ready. It is appropriate then that I am spending this Advent season in another sort of preparation—we are likely getting another foster placement by January: a teenage girl. It’s an interesting parallel, that these two seasons of my life are overlaid in this way. I’m currently nesting, getting the bedroom and bathroom ready, cleaning and dusting and washing bedding. I am preparing my home for this child, much like we prepare our hearts for the arrival of Christ at Christmas. There is a spirit of welcoming in this sort of preparation. It is an anticipatory joy. Such celebration shows care. Such preparation shows sincere desire. It says, You are wanted in this place. You belong here. I am ready for your arrival. I want to be ready to welcome this new child. I am spending this time in preparation, anticipating the connection we will forge, the bond we will have. I am hoping that this spirit of welcoming that I’m trying to cultivate with clean sheets and fresh toothpaste is akin to the Christmas spirit all around us—peace and goodwill, hope and connection. Welcome to our home and our hearts, new girl. You already belong. My last look at my childhood home was entirely digital.
Our family had met in person at the house over a week earlier to say goodbye to the only home we had ever known. I had expected it to be an emotional farewell, but at the time, it really wasn’t. We spent our time cheerfully reminiscing as we sorted through old report cards and school photos and preschool graduation certificates, as we loaded furniture onto the trailer and made trips out to the dumpster. It still felt like we had so much time left. We knew it was only a week, but a week there felt like forever because we had no concept of anything else within those walls. That home had already been ours forever. It had only ever been ours. It was the ancestral Miller family home. I could not yet comprehend the idea of it belonging to anyone else. But today, that all changes. Today, after five generations of Millers living on that farm, a new family will take ownership of it. My last look at my childhood home happened last night, on on the small, smudged screen of my iPhone. It felt so surreal, listening to Mom narrate a tour of the most familiar place I’ve ever known. By the end of the video, she was crying, and Dad put his arm around her, and he said a beautiful prayer over the home, that it would continue to be a blessing and a refuge. It had certainly been a blessing and a refuge for us: The yard was tranquil, an idyllic acreage of full of trees and aging outbuildings, with space made for childhood joy: a trampoline and a swing set, a treehouse and a pool. But the actual house, built by my great-great-great grandfather, felt like an embrace. That house was a silent witness to our lives, sheltering us like a sentinel as generations of Millers grew within its walls. Passing over its threshold kindled the warmth of centuries-old emotion, as though the memories of laughter and fun, of play and love and kindness had been left behind for us to enjoy, an inheritance from my ancestors. That home had been a refuge for others as well—a literal, historical refuge: the Miller farm, north of Wells, was a known safehouse for American Indians fleeing persecution. My heart swells with pride at the thought, that my family used their home to offer safety and shelter to those in need. Though my own adult home is bereft of that same historical memory, having been built more than a century after my childhood home, I have still tried to make similar use of it, offering it as a refuge, as safety and shelter for children in need through the act of foster care. In that way, the spirit of our home can live on, even when it is no longer ours. As a family, we shared our tearful goodbye over the phone, miles apart, as Mom and Dad packed the final load into their minivan and drove away. That was the end. We will never share another meal together there. We will never again dump our coats in the porch and sweep into the kitchen to receive Mom’s hugs and snitch bites of whatever she had cooking on the stove. We will never again gather around the fireplace at Christmas to sing carols and unwrap gifts. We will never again play card games in the dining room or tag in the yard. Starting today, a new family will begin their own history there, in the loving space five generations of Millers left behind. And while that home, the Miller farm, north of Wells, is no longer in our family, we can still carry the legacy of generosity and hospitality with us. |
Old Stuff.
January 2023
Categories.
All
|