fear

Voting Without Fear of the Future

/ abby hummel / 3 Comments

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She is clothed with strength and dignity; she laughs without fear of the future. – Proverbs 31:25, NLT.

If I can manage to register to vote in Missouri before then, I’ll be in a polling booth on November 8, exercising one of the greatest political freedoms in all history: a woman, voting, in a free election. I don’t want to lose my wonder at this privilege.

This is the 4th election cycle I have participated in. Since no governmental system or politician (especially) is perfect, it’s likely that I will sometimes vote pragmatically instead of ideally, as I have already done in the past. But this time and this election is different. Neither major political party has nominated a trustworthy candidate representing anything I believe is supposed to be right and good about this nation, so I refuse to vote for either one of them. I plan on casting my ballot with a write-in vote for my friend Cate, who is not actually running for President (at least not this time).

Letting the rest of the country decide who makes it to the Oval Office feels strange to me. I do not pretend to be a political scholar with elite Washington insider secrets, but I do strive to be thoughtful and informed. Taking the responsibilities of democracy seriously, I study the Constitution.  Taking my responsibility to love my neighbor seriously, I remember living overseas among squalor – the  aluminum-shack-and-no-toilet variety. I see what war winnows even from a man who walks away from battle honorably. I have wept for tiny lives lost from my own body while other little ones were legally destroyed at the exact same age. In the same breath, motherhood (even more than I expected) has burdened me significantly towards the plight of women in poverty, especially those with unplanned pregnancies or children of their own. None of these things fully exclude that I am a woman prone to fear about my own circumstances, and what things might be like for my children in the years to come.

I expect to wake up on November 9 and hear that either Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump has been elected president. Checking the news that morning with coffee in hand, making my kids some oatmeal, I may sigh a bit. I am determined that I will not despair. When we settle at the table, those dear little mouths will babble along while I sing “This is the day that the Lord has made/ I will rejoice and be glad in it,” as we always do for our breakfast prayer. It will be just as true then as it was this morning.

Singing songs and eating nutritious food with my healthy children is fairly idyllic while so many things in the country – and the world at large – seem like a mess. Thinking about that makes me feel very small. The problems present in our current systems for healthcare, poverty assistance, and education are not ones I can solve. I don’t really know how to battle systemic dysfunctions that usually benefit me and penalize others with fewer resources. I can’t decimate ISIS or breathe life back into the lungs of that little boy who drowned between Syria and Turkey. Sometimes political activism allures me by dampening my sense of powerlessness. When there is Bad Stuff happening, I can vote for Someone Else to enact The Right Plan (As Approved By God) and feel like I’ve really done something. It is always a short-lived relief.

The vote I cast this year is not about electing a president, but about telling the powers-that-be, “I care enough to vote and I don’t like these options.” Mostly, I’m hoping enough people join me in sending this message to cause a shake-down and rebranding in Washington politics so I can have better options next time around. I can’t pretend my vote for president is going to solve the world’s problems, like I have sometimes accidentally believed in the past. Instead, this forces me to look at what I can, and should, do:
Feed my children breakfast while cultivating a hope-filled home.
Befriend my neighbors while walking alongside people who are hurting around me.
Think less of my own circumstances while speaking up for the cause of the afflicted.
Search out the organizations and ministries that are doing good on a broader scale, supporting them instead of upgrading my own lifestyle.

These are not small things.

It’s also not a small thing to say “no” to fear. The rhetoric of political seasons like this one becomes especially charged; the promises are impossibly yuuuge (sorry, I had to do it) and the threats -implied or explicit-  are fearsome. Yet when God’s word tells me not to fear, it’s not excluding politics. When an election cycle doesn’t go the way we want, it often reveals a sort of political idolatry. What I heard people saying after Donald Trump became the presumptive nominee for the Republican party sound like an email forward I received after President Obama’s election in 2008, urging me to trust in God despite the impending apocalypse ushered in by the “victory of Evil and Darkness.” (Let’s trust this was a spiritual reference, not a racial one. Either way… what?) Those sentiments betray a misplaced hope in political solutions to spiritual problems, because trusting God is always the right thing no matter what is happening in the government. Eight years later, I still don’t believe the President is working for goals I support, but that election definitely was not The End Of The World As We Know It. And even if it was? My primary call as a Christian in loving God and others has not diminished because of it.

Resting in the authority of God means accepting the responsibilities and privileges granted in my earthly citizenship – I’m not, for example, staying home on election day, or suggesting women in free countries should stop voting until women everywhere can do the same. It also excludes confusing any brand of patriotism with Christianity: Political powers (including parties) rise and fall, and it is unlikely that God is as much of a Republican or Democrat as some want to imagine. It calls me to funnel more energy to loving my neighbor than to elation or frustration about whatever democracy has wrought.  Mostly, this compels me to face November 8 (and all the crazy news I hear until then) in confidence, without fear of whatever news I hear on November 9 for the years following.

 

Coon Ranch: the house i had not seen

/ abby hummel / 6 Comments

coon ranch

Did you know I signed on the dotted line for this house without having seen it in person? The transition from Iowa to Minnesota was a little bit nuts, and buying a new house I had not seen seemed appropriate, given that all of life felt like such a leap of faith in this move. Would we ever have a baby? Would Aaron like his job? Would we have a doctor we liked? Would we make friends? Would we find a good church? Would we regret not waiting for something else to come together? Would I find any grocery store I liked as much as Fareway? I had no answers about the future, so it felt normal to add, “What kind of house will we have, and will I like it?” to the mix.

(After 17 months I reflect on those questions: Some answers were yes, some were no, and a few things are still up in the air.)

We looked at a bunch of houses together and fought like crazy about them (this is embarrassing but pretty normal when househunting, I think), and our schedules conflicted enough that Aaron had to shop on his own on during the last week of our house-buying window. If he didn’t find one, we would probably be renting (and therefore probably not getting a dog) for the next several years. We looked at pictures of puppies online and prayed that something would work out. He found one and told me it was boring but that boring was the best choice for us right now. I closed my eyes and signed like Ariel giving her soul to Ursula.

Ariel contract

 

And I will say, this house is perfect for what we thought we needed, and yet… we don’t really like it. This is a total first-world problem. It works, it has the details we were looking for (a guest room, a good spot for piano lessons, a fenced in yard for little Max, etc.) and was in the right price range.  I think it’s just that the “cool factor” of our old house is a hard act to follow. We have nothing that compares to the old vaulted wood ceilings, fireplace, crawlspace storage, stone patios, or wooded outdoor stairways. Instead, we are in a neighborhood full of the exact same 3-bedroom 2-bath 1960’s rambler. And not just “similar,” I mean, THE SAME. Our floor plan is identical to every other house on  our street, and the next street, and everything else around here. (A few people in the neighborhood got fancy and put an enclosed walkway between their garage and their house, but that’s about it. Why anyone thought detached garages were a good idea in Minnesota is a mystery I will ponder until the grave. It’s right up there with why there was carpet in the kitchen at the old house before we tiled it. I spilled some leftover chili on that one time and you just can’t get something like that out of carpeting, you know?) Where the old house was in meticulous shape (though out of date) when we moved in, the people who lived here before us were more of the TV-watching and only-mowing-the-lawn-once-a-summer kind of family. It’s a new challenge to take over a home from people who didn’t value their stewardship, so we’ve had to do lots of “maintenance catch up” projects, too.

The past few months have included a lot of work, and we now have a bit more to be proud of here: Lots of grass seeding and careful watering. New windows. A dishwasher – glory be to God. Beautiful floors and sharp white trim in the upstairs. Massive amounts of decluttering (what? how do we have so. much. stuff?) and reorganizing. Getting a tall filing cabinet so we can keep track of our official papery things like adults. Pulling some more of our decorating stuff out of bins and feeling a little more at home.

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this is not finished, but it is on the way! painters tape will go, fabric for new curtains are all ready to make, etc.

 

Finishing things up like this gives me the heebie-jeebies — what if it means we do have to move soon?? — but it is nice to have the hopes of enjoying the fruit of our labor here. And while I really like these floors and the new rug and all that, I have to say I’m a bigger fan of the fact that we’re too tired to watch TV in the basement and that we trip over the little toys that get strewn about, because for all the details I’m bored by, I love that this “lame” house is home for more people and more joy than we had before.

living room
Even with plenty of things I don’t love or would have done differently (um, garage-style flourescent lights in the bedroom?), our “Coon Ranch” has been a beautiful picture to me of the mysterious ways God has provided for us during a stage of life that is very sojourn-ish. While it doesn’t take up as much room in this blog (or my heart), it’s been a good place to learn and grow, and I am learning to love that very, very much.

first bond with the wilderness

/ abby hummel / 2 Comments

“Always in the big woods when you leave familiar ground and step off alone into a new place there will be, along with the feelings of curiosity and excitement, a little nagging of dread. It is the ancient fear of the Unknown, and it is your first bond with the wilderness you are going into.” – Wendell Berry

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We’ve had nearly a month with Annie, who is essentially the dream-come-true, perfect baby in every sense. I’m getting afraid to tell people how fabulous she’s doing with sleeping and eating, because they invariably tell me I’ll pay for it when she’s a teenager, or, if they are in the throes of a regular baby’s sleeping and eating woes, I think they might throw an exersaucer at me in their sleep-deprived stupor. I was extremely determined not to complain about any part of life with a newborn, but I haven’t even had much worth complaining about. It has been pure joy, joy, joy to have her here and take care of her.

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Maybe because Aaron and I are both extremely inclined to imagine and prepare for the worst possible scenario in every area of life, and because we had a definitively “bad start” with growing our family, this pregnancy lacked much excitement or anticipation. What I really remember most about the past year of anticipating this time is being afraid. So many changes! So many questions! So many new things! We moved into this house knowing I was pregnant, but neither one of us could talk about where to arrange furniture or belongings in order to prepare for the baby. Before nearly every OB appointment, even well past the “danger zone” of the first trimester, I would listen to I Corinthians 15 on my phone and hold Max and cry. When we found out Annie was a girl, I panicked when I thought about how much pink stuff we were likely to accumulate and specifically told friends and family I didn’t want any pepto-bismal-colored clothing or gear. I probably would have been concerned about clothes with too many blue whales and orange foxes or something like that if she had been a boy. More than all this, I worried that the anxiety would spill over in to life with the baby, that it would prevent us from connecting with her, that being afraid of her meant I didn’t love her, that I was letting it steal the joy we had waited for.

But now, with her here safely, I look back and realize Wendell Berry was right in what he said about standing at the edge of the woods. We had the curiosity and excitement, for sure, but the sense of dread for the uncertainties ahead was unshakable. Now I think that fear was part of our first bond together, and I’m sure it’s part of the wild adventure of raising a child. It hasn’t robbed us of anything we need to love and enjoy her now. We really are delighted by every moment with this girl, who is, as Aaron put it last night, “much pretty.” (Proper use of irregular adjectives is one of the first things to go if you are overworked and a little sleep deprived, I suppose.)

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Behold, I am doing a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will even make a way in the wilderness… – Isaiah 43:19

 

it takes courage

/ abby hummel / 7 Comments

I’ve never thought of myself as a writer, really. A musician, an artist, a creator? Yes, but not much of a writer.  During my senior year of high school I had a tutor for my college entrance essay assignments, and I remember confessing this frustration during an editing session. Nearly every other form of creative expression came easily for me. I could write a song, arrange a collage, perform a piano solo, lead in a musical, knit a scarf, or decorate a room with confidence, but every time I tried to write, I questioned myself and was consistently unhappy with the results of my hard work. She listened patiently, and then suggested that frustration about my challenges as a writer might actually be a cover for the fear that my ideas weren’t valuable. Writing doesn’t have to come naturally to matter, she assured me, and good things are worth working for. I didn’t really understand what she meant for several years, and I rarely thought of this conversation after it happened. (I can recount this now because, in a move that is admittedly ironic, I recorded her comments in my journal, which is my long-standing habit after all thought-provoking conversations.)

Though I got plenty of challenging writing assignments once I started college (thank you, Dr. Freeh, et al!), I spent most of those years surrounded by absolute geniuses in every variety of written communication – literature analysts, poets, journalists, scriptural exegetes, curriculum editors, and columnists of every sort. I’m sure my writing competence sharpened significantly during this time, but I never felt like I was even close to average abilities. My insecurity might make even more sense if you know that I was tight with these writers: I married a scholarship-winning journalist, one of my wedding bridesmaids has now published a book, and several other friends from that life are in graduate school or regularly writing things read by people they don’t know. Spending my life with people who were beyond my own mastery in this one area was a fertile breeding ground for that long-held fear of inadequacy, the nagging sense that I just didn’t have much to say. I didn’t realize this was exactly what my tutor meant yet by then, or even in the following years when I would escape boredom at work by maintaining frighteningly voluminous email correspondence.

I finally remembered the admonition about writing-insecurity hiding my idea-insecurity again at the end of our recent Michigan vacation when I was packing up a box of my belongings from my old bedroom in my parents’ house. It’s been four years since I “officially” moved out after graduating from college and marrying Aaron, and we own our home so I don’t have many things left there. This final load was a collection of my journals, now chronicling over half of my life. There were twenty-five notebooks that I brought home, with dates stretching back to 1998. I was twelve years old then.

After arriving back in Iowa, I organized this small library by date and added my other recent journals, which brings the total number to thirty-four. While setting things in order, I thumbed through a few books and recalled God’s kindness and my growth with laughter and cringing. I’m glad I don’t have to go back to middle school… or high school, for that matter!

And maybe it’s a sign of that same kindness and growth that in the middle of this project (besides wondering where on earth I am actually going to keep these) I couldn’t help but think: It’s probably time to stop pretending I don’t write. And I should stop being afraid of my ideas, too.

It takes courage to grow up and become who you really are.
– e. e. cummings.

Recent Reads

/ abby hummel / 4 Comments

We’ve had our first rhubarb harvest, every other dinner’s salad is fresh from the garden, and last night’s bike ride included nine bunny sightings. It’s not that warm yet, but summer has definitely started! One of the best parts of summer is… Well, who can pick just one? I like it all! But right now I’m excited about summer reading. I just finished a great Bible Study program that ran through the school year, so my regular book reading diminished drastically since September. This summer my work load is decreased a bit, and while I hope to maintain consistent study of scripture, I’m excited about extra time for real books, too. So I can’t say I’ve been reading two books a month like I did last year, but I’m going to blog about the past year’s worth of literary edification now in case you want to pick anything up for your own summer reading list. My natural bent is towards devotional, historical, nerdy, or “self-help”-ish books, but I have been richly rewarded by some intentional fiction reading, so I’m hoping to be more balanced with reading stories and “real life” in the future.
(These are listed here alphabetically by author.)

Jayber Crow by Wendell Berry
I’ve had Wendell Berry on the radar for years. In college I frequently babysat for the children of a Berry scholar (as in, wrote a real book about it), and sometimes I thumbed through the books on their shelf. But I didn’t get anything read start-to-finish until now, and I am kicking myself for taking half a decade to get around to it. This author is gently profound, and his prose beautifully marries an understanding of God’s dual revelation (in scripture and nature) with an uncanny knack for describing the human condition. Berry “gets” God, and he “gets” man. I will say that I found it especially intriguing that a confessing Baptist would write a story where the main character spends much of his life in confusion about faith and veers sharply off the path of orthodox Christian belief at the end, but I would still highly recommend this book as a story about loss, grief, growth and redemption.

“This grief had something in it of generosity, some nearness to joy. In a strange way, it added to me what I had lost. I saw that, for me, this country would always be populated with presences and absences, presences of absences, the living and the dead. The world as it is would always be a reminder of the world that was, and of the world that is to come. … I am a pilgrim, but my pilgrimage has been wandering and unmarked. Often what has looked like a straight line to me has been a circle or a doubling back. …The names of many snares and dangers have been made known to me, but I have seen them only in looking back. Often I have not known where I was going until I was already there. I have had my share of desires and goals, but life has come to me or I have gone to it mainly by way of mistakes and surprises. Often I have received better than I have deserved. Often my fairest hopes have rested on bad mistakes. I am an ignorant pilgrim, crossing a dark valley. And yet for a long time, looking back, I have been unable to shake off the feeling that I have been led — make of that what you will.” -Jayber Crow, by Wendell Berry.

***
When God Talks Back by  T.M. Luhrmann.
This is a huge volume based on an anthropologist’s report of spending years in two different Vineyard churches throughout the country. I feel like I’m cheating because I actually returned this to the library before I finished it, but I would like to finish it sometime, and I still recommend this to anyone who is intrigued by anthropology or curious about the psychological study of prayer. Which would be… probably no one. I’m okay with being a little nerdy here: I thought it was really interesting. And I truly appreciated that a non-believing author managed to write a book about evangelical prayer without an overwhelming air of cynicism. Though I don’t necessarily agree with some of her conclusions, I appreciated that she took people seriously and wanted to figure out how the human side of prayer works. My biggest beef with what I’ve read so far is that Luhrmann keeps using the word “evangelical,” while most evangelicals probably wouldn’t call the churches she visited mainstream. But, whatever. The evangelical Christian movement is almost impossible to narrowly define, even in a book that’s 300+ pages like this one.

***
Gilead by Marilynne Robinson
Gilead is a beautiful story, told in letters from an elderly minister near death to his seven-year-old miracle son. (While every child is a miracle, one who is seven when his father dies of old age is more likely to be referenced as such, I suppose.) The San Francisco Chronicle said Gilead “explores big ideas while telling a good story,” and I would recommend this for anyone who has thought about God’s will, singleness, marriage, childlessness, parenting, grief, disappointment, ministry, or the meaning of life. Which means, everyone. I liked this so much that I listened to the audio CD a few weeks after reading the book, and I was so excited to share this novel with some friends that I recommended it to several people right away. Then I found out most of them had read it already. So I feel like I was late to the party, but you should read it now, because this is one of those things that isn’t worth missing!

“I don’t know exactly what covetise is, but in my experience it is not so much desiring someone else’s virtue or happiness as rejecting it, taking offense at the beauty of it.” -Gilead, by Marilynne Robinson.

***
Still: Notes on a Mid-Faith Crisis by Lauren F. Winner
I have loved several of Lauren Winner’s other books, especially her conversion memoir “Girl Meets God,” so I was very curious about “Still: Notes on a Mid-Faith Crisis.” Written out of the spiritual torment she faced grieving her mother’s death and doubting her faith in a difficult marriage resulting in an (admittedly) unjustifiable divorce, Winner tells her raw story of doubt and faith. Many times, it seemed that her “journal-entryish” writing (like CS Lewis’ “A Grief Observed,” but a bit more organized) left me feeling emotionally brutalized along with her – doubt is a painful thing, and it hurt to read about, too. In both knowing personally that Christian marriage is not all picnics and rainbows, and walking alongside a dear friend in the aftermath of marital dissolution, I have a hard time feeling sympathy for the trauma Winner faced after leaving her husband. I don’t know the whole story behind that, but I do know she reflected on those grave choices with honesty and renewed faith. It’s not as though she can go back and change it, and I am grateful God meets us where we are instead of where we should be. In many ways, this book reminds us that life is tough and God, though sometimes hard to understand, is good. Winner writes with a haunting narrative voice and her words are thought-provoking in some ways I didn’t expect. For that reason I think it deserves mention here.

“The enthusiasms of my conversion have worn off. For whole stretches since the dream, since the baptism, my belief has faltered, my sense of God’s closeness has grown strained, my efforts at living in accord with what I take to be the call of the gospel have come undone. …And yet in those same moments of strained belief, of not knowing where or if God is, it has also seemed that the Christian story keeps explaining who and where I am, better than any other story I know. … I doubt; I am uncertain; I am restless, prone to wander. And yet glimmers of holy keep interrupting my gaze.” (‘Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.’ John 6:68, esv.) – Still, by Lauren F. WInner.

I have a few things on my summer reading list already (Eric Metatexas’ Bonhoeffer biography is in progress, Return of the King by Tolkien, the Huger Games trilogy by Suzanne Collins, In This House of Brede by Rumer Godden, and Great Expectations by Dickens), but I’d love to hear more suggestions if you have any to offer!

A Cruel Month

/ abby hummel / 5 Comments

April is the cruelest month, breeding
lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
memory and desire, stirring
dull roots with spring rain…
– TS Eliot, The Wasteland (“Part 1- The Burial of the Dead”)

I’ve never really understood much of the TS Eliot poem “The Wasteland,” to the point where I’m usually not sure the author even had a logical meaning that anyone was supposed to comprehend. This is totally sour grapes on my part, of course. He just means something I have not yet grasped. So I get lost in every attempt, but I keep coming back to these words because some of the imagery and the opening line, “April is the cruelest month,” resonates so clearly with me.

I have had many good Aprils, particularly 1986, when I was born, and the month is not always bad to me. But rain falls on the just and the unjust alike, so I have seen some cruel Aprils. The worst of them were five and six years ago, when Aaron and I were dating. During the first April there was much weeping, wailing and gnashing of teeth, since I was dreading his departure for a deployment to Iraq. (In addition to the cruel April business, Eliot’s poem also says “I will show you fear in a handful of dust,” and confronting the dust-to-dust nature of this all was, indeed, terrifying.) When his pre-deployment training began I didn’t know we would have a brief summer reunion and thought we had kissed goodbye for the year. The day after he left I threw myself into a heap on my bed, surrounded by some girlfriends, and declared “I am being ripped in two!”

"kissing the war good-bye" was above my dorm dresser. also pictured: valentine's flowers.

the "birthday jar" I sent Aaron for his 22nd birthday. I was sick so my mom snapped this while I was in bed.

The second cruel April was a year later, and I was tiredly, anxiously, wearily, fearfully awaiting his imminent return home. It was an awful year in so many ways, and some days it seemed like every breath was a reminder of how fragile we all are. There were funerals, injuries, battles, sickness, nightmares, care packages, letters, emails, and lots of crying (on my part). The experience was more harrowing for Aaron than for me, of course, which appalls me a little to this day.  It has been said that “the darkest hour is just before dawn,” and those words were remarkably true for me that year. Sometime in February, I broke down with a friend while we were leaving the music building. I had been counting down to a rough estimate of Aaron’s homecoming date, and I remember sobbing “There are 73 more days! I can’t do it! This is impossible!” Then it felt like everything was downhill from there, and the last few weeks of deployment were full of insomnia and grotesque nightmares whenever I could get some sleep. I knew after all the difficulty of that year we were not home free yet. Nearly every day I heard people saying “You must be getting so excited!” and I just wanted to scream that he was still in danger and something could still happen to him and there is nothing exciting about someone you love being in a war zone, ever, even if they are scheduled to come home soon.

Then (At last! Finally!), five years ago today, the cruelty of that April came to an end and he was returning home. At that point, I almost wished my insomnia would have stayed a little longer since I was studying, writing, and practicing like crazy at the end of the semester, trying to work ahead as much as possible. Several professors graciously adjusted my scheduled finals so I could celebrate this homecoming – one even handed me an exam, winked, and told me to bring it back before graduation. Grace upon grace.

waiting!

Aside from the homecoming, which I have written about earlier, my favorite memory of this time came a few days later. Aaron was safely home, and the family sat on the couch praying for his upcoming TV interview. His mom asked that God would give him words to speak to the reporter, and his brother interjected, “English words!”

at last!

at last!

It’s interesting to unpack important lessons after trials like this. A few weeks into that summer, I sat with a family friend and watched Aaron perform important ushering duties at his sister’s wedding. (It was on a beach, and I remember him saying, “oh… sand…”) Someone remarked to me that Aaron’s presence here was proof of God’s faithfulness to us, and springing out of the growth and learning of the past year I had to correct them. Yes, God is faithful and gracious, and we received our loved one back from war… but a terrible outcome for that year would not have changed God’s character. I am so thankful that divine faithful character was expressed in this way, but I can’t pretend God “owed” us this safe homecoming. Things could have taken a tragic turn and that April would have been crueler than all the rest, and we could been weeping through a “the Lord gives and the Lord takes away” sort of lesson in it all. But for whatever reason, that was not the case, and we now reflect on this with humility and gratefulness:

 “Who has ever given to God, that God should repay him?” – Romans 11, niv.

“The LORD has dealt bountifully with you. ” – Psalm 116, esv.

Some of these Aprils have been cruel, but I am grateful for what has sprung out from that.
Welcome home, five years ago today.

“fear not”

/ abby hummel / 2 Comments

Whether you focus on the spiritual themes of Advent or jump ahead into Christmas celebrations, the weeks leading up to the holidays are full of waiting and excitement. While anticipating Christmas brings joyful hope, patience for other things in life is often very raw, destabilizing and scary. Especially when life is wearisome, the holiday waiting can hit a nerve of underlying or unrecognized fear.  It’s easy to picture happy children marking passed days on the calendar expecting another magical December 25th, but the rest of life isn’t like that. We don’t know what, when, or even if things will happen, and the things that do end up happening might be hard or painful. Depending on the person and their circumstances these contingencies may be especially terrifying, but it’s safe to say we all face this battle in some way. At this time of the year it might feel like the chasm between happy hope and our own gaping wounds is uncrossable. Uncertainty can make celebrations feel so painful for some, and these challenges seem worse with messages all around urging happiness and merriment.

There’s no use hiding these hard feelings, and I’ve been thinking about this because this theme of nagging anxiety has been a theme in so many conversations I’ve had lately. There are varied stories, of course, but most of us respond to all sorts of pain by asking similar questions:
What if I don’t succeed in this new endeavor – grad school, starting a business or job, parenting, paying off debt, leadership responsibilities, moving?
     What if the person I love rejects me and I’ve poured myself out for nothing?
     What if it takes forever to recover after this awful thing?
     What if things don’t get better?
The letters I-F in “what if?” give us a quick way to reveal what I Fear, and I confess a sinking familiarity with this list because I’m asking the same questions on some level every single day. I don’t think these fears are unique to anyone!

It shouldn’t be that surprising to confront growing fear while preparing for Christ’s coming. The Israelites must have mused, Our prophets seemed like they were crazy anyway, we were captured and in exile, and now we’ve had hundreds of years without a messenger from God… What if this is all a joke? Shouldn’t the Messiah be here by now? An angel had to command Joseph not to fear taking Mary as his wife. The shepherds were terrified for one of the most glorious fresh-air Angelic choir concerts of all time. And even today we’re bombarded with skepticism about Jesus’ return: Look at people like Howard Camping! Is it crazy to think this is real? Shouldn’t Jesus be back by now?  Human fear permeates the story of Christmas, so why shouldn’t contemplating the mysteries of Christ’s coming bring our own everyday fears to light as well?

The Christmas story is beautiful here as it validates and releases these fears with  the messages of our Advent contemplations – hope, peace, joy and love.
Weary Israel: This is the branch from Jesse, with the spirit of the fear of the Lord, which remedies all the rest of your fears.
Take courage, Joseph: These crazy and embarrassing circumstances you don’t understand fulfill my promise to bring forth salvation.
Good news, lowly Shepherds:  Salvation comes for all people, including you.
Be not afraid: God is incarnate, dwelling among us that we may behold him.

Reinforcing the truth of scripture, many Christmas carols proclaim the Christ child is the antidote to fear.
Yet in thy dark street shineth the everlasting light!
The hopes and fears of all the years are met in Thee tonight.
– “O Little Town of Bethlehem” words by Philip Brooks, 1867.

Saints before the altar bending, watching long in hope and fear,  
Suddenly the Lord descending in His temple shall appear!
– “Angels from the Realms of Glory” words by James Montgomery, 1816.

Come, thou long-expected Jesus, born to set thy people free
From our sins and fears release us, let us find our rest in thee!
– “Come Thou Long Expected Jesus” words by Charles Wesley.

(Advent Starry Night by Virginia Wieringa)

And it’s interesting to note what happened after these Christmas story fears were confronted. Joseph woke up from his dream and obeyed the angel’s command.  The shepherds went from their fields to find the stable in obedience to their instructions. They responded to fear by acting on what God had revealed to them, and that’s the same path we can take to push past fear. In yielding any worry, big or small, we encounter the ultimate revelation God has given us – Christ, the Word made flesh.

“Be not afraid; say unto the cities of Judah, Behold your God!”   – Isaiah 40, king james version.

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