photo by Collyn Ware

Never be afraid to trust an unknown future to a known God.
― Corrie ten Boom

In the past year, I’ve had several conversations with individuals whose trust in a better world and brighter future was tenuous at best. One admitted that she didn’t feel as though she could bring children into a world like this. Another lamented the status of our political and physical environments, claiming both were woefully inadequate to sustain any promise for the future. As I listened, I imagined the doomsday clock ticking loudly, both the hour and minute hands circling wildly and with great speed. I imagined the end coming like a thief in the night, quick and sure.

As I reflected upon these conversations, I was truly saddened. Even in my darkest moments, I’ve never felt as though things were so bad that I didn’t want to have children or plan my future. Even as wars continued, politicians wrangled for power, and news of environmental disasters grieved the world, I found myself looking forward to better times.

If anyone may have conceded that the doomsday clock was, indeed, ticking, consider Corrie ten Boom, the Dutch resistance worker and concentration camp prisoner. Corrie and her family, members of the Dutch Reformed Church, worked with the Dutch resistance to resist Nazi occupation of the Netherlands and to hide Dutch Jews. For this work, she was arrested by the Gestapo, imprisoned in her own country, and later transferred to Ravensbruck, a female concentration camp in Germany. Clearly, she had cause to regard the future–hers and the world’s–with despair. And yet, she didn’t. When her future was unclear, she clung to the assurance that God was with her. She trusted that the world’s dark night of the soul wouldn’t last forever. After she was released from Ravensbruck in 1944 and reunited with surviving members of her family, she dedicated her life to reconciliation, helping Holocaust victims heal emotionally and spiritually. In spite of the pain she witnessed all around her, she hung on to the promise that God would never forsake his people, and she let go of her pain and fear. She may not have known exactly what the future held, but she did know the God to whom she entrusted it.

In the nativity story, Joseph is often portrayed as a secondary figure: the guy who got Mary into Bethlehem, who found shelter just in time, and who stood around helplessly during the birth. Imagine discovering that your betrothed is pregnant–and not with your child. If anyone had a right to doubt a hopeful future, it might have been Joseph. Faced with what appeared to be no good options, Joseph could’ve cut his losses and slunk away in shame. But in truth, he stepped up to play a leading role when he took Mary as his wife. In Matthew 1: 20-21 and 24, we read:

But after he had considered this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, “Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. she will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins . . . When Joseph woke up, he did what the angel of the Lord had commanded him and took Mary home as his wife.

To assume the role of earthly father to God’s son is, perhaps, one of the biggest leading roles of all. When Joseph could only see the future through the glass darkly, God reached out to him in a dream. Joseph grabbed this promise and held on. And then he let go. He released his shame and fear, his uncertainty and pride and stepped up as both husband and father.

Every Christmas, I remember our own trip to Bethlehem in 1992. In the middle of the night, Paul and I loaded our sleeping girls into the van and made our way to the Bethlehem Baptist Church in Minneapolis, Minnesota. There in a few short hours, we would meet our infant son who was being flown in from Georgia. Not flesh of our flesh, nor bone of our bone, but the son we’d already come to love and would soon adopt. Paul would never have a biological son, but he stepped in with both feet to father this baby boy whom we only knew through photos. For in truth, we had a family of five already, and adopting a fourth child came at my urging. He could’ve said no, but he didn’t. Instead, he hung on to the future that I’d imagined–a future we trusted that God would bless–and let go of any uncertainties he’d previously held.

Unquestionably, most of of us have had moments when we looked ahead and could see no light at the end of our tunnels. We may not have been able to even see our hands in front of our faces. To move forward, to embrace the future with courage and hope? Sure, we’ll just step into a tiger’s cage, ride a barrel over Niagra Falls, rappell off a skyscraper and free climb El Capitan. No problem.

None of us knows exactly what our futures hold. We can make predictions, and we can dream. But ultimately, it’s all about what we hang onto and what we let go of. We can hang onto our doubts and fears, as we let go of any hope in a better tomorrow. Or we can reach forward and hang onto God’s promises, as we let go of the pessimism that that threatens to imprison us. Holocaust survivor Corrie ten Boom hung on. Fathers Joseph and Paul hung on. And in doing so, all stepped assuredly into the future.

And then there’s my grandson Griffin, standing atop a sledding hill for the first time in the season. The snow was wet enough to be slick, and at the bottom of the hill stood a forbidding thicket of scrub brush. He hesitated. Then, he hung onto his grandpa as they pushed off and let go with a whoop that sailed through the frosty air.

This is the paradox and challenge of Advent: to hang on and let go. But just ask Griffin, it’s well worth the ride.