Like many of the key moments of the calendar, Advent has the potential to trip some big and complicated feelings – making space and acknowledging those feelings isn’t diminishing or detracting from the joy of the season of Advent, though. Making space for conflicting feelings and experiences is an opportunity for us to gather our whole community into the experience of faith. Advent recognises a sense of hope, in the

middle of difficult circumstances. It recognises things growing out of struggle. It recognises the Kingdom of God breaking in – and subverting the expectations of the people who were looking for the Saviour. When we make space for difficult feelings, and name them as real and legitimate, we also make space for the grace of God to come and meet us all in our feelings and struggles and hardships, and we make space for new things to grow out of that.

PRAY

As we enter this time of Advent, we acknowledge that there are those within our community who hold grief in their hearts. For some their grief is long lived, a companion, not welcome but familiar. For others their grief is new, bright, and loud. For some their grief is approaching at a speed they cannot predict but with an inevitability that has already taken its toll. Hope and pain are held together in the story of the birth of Christ.

(light the candle)

We light this candle and remember Sara and Abram, Hannah and Ephraim, Elizabeth and Zechariah who waited and grieved.

We light this candle and remember the stories that remain untold because that much-loved child has not arrived.

We light this candle and remember the families who loved a child whose life did not get lived and the families who held those they loved only briefly.

We light this candle and remember that families come in many different forms.

At Advent, we tell this story of the birth of a child, unexpected, and beloved. And we hold in our hearts the knowledge that in a few months at Easter, we grieve the loss of that life, and all the things that it means to us as believers. Joy and grief, together. This is the story of a family who did not fit their society expectations, a family who loved and grieved, just as many of us in this space are family who love and grieve together.

We light this candle and remember that stories of birth and family are often touched by grief and pain.

We light this candle to remember those who weep silent tears of the heart.

We light this candle and remember.

by Stacey Wilson from: https://intergen.org.au/product/advent-series-something-is-coming/