Two and a half years ago, my family went to Disney World two weeks after I walked away from a church job that I loved but wasn’t a healthy situation. That week was a salve for the four of us; a chance to be exhausted by fun and whimsy instead of hurt. Fast forward to last week and we were back in the Most Magical Place on Earth. I had been through an incredibly healing hospital chaplain residency and was in the interview process for a church job about which I was hopefully excited. We were there with my parents, brother, sister, and their families. There was a hope that I dared not speak that perhaps this trip would be a full circle moment.
And then the first day we were in the parks I found out through other channels that the church was going in another direction. My wife and I were gutted. Also an aside to those on church search committees: Please don’t ghost people if you tell them you are going to get back to them. I know it can be awkward to tell people no, but that awkwardness is far preferable to the alternative of someone feeling like they weren’t even worth an email to let them know what was happening.
Hope is a tricky thing because you do not want to assume that good things will happen and thus get crushed when they do not. Yet hope is kind of a necessary thing to wade through all the crap that we experience in life. So I am left with this feeling that is common in life and appropriate for Advent which started yesterday: What do you do when your hopes are sitting in a pile labeled “Not yet”?
I’m genuinely asking. Because right now? I don’t know what to do. Advent tells us to wait. I will probably write a lot more to suss things out. I will be the best darn househusband and father that I can be. We are fortunately not in danger of starving or losing our house, but I will need to find a job even if it is waiting tables at the taco place next door. I am aware of the fact that doing a job that you love and to which you feel called is a luxury. I am not owed that. Many people in my life remind me that God is with me and my calling is not nothing. Yet there are days when I am not so sure.
I guess that is where hope and faith really face their test. Does it continue to persevere even when the obstacles seem to flow in a constant stream? I feel like I am being incredibly emo about this situation, but I need a space to wrestle with this. If someone came to me with this problem, I would tell that all of this does suck. That hurt is real and it must be acknowledged. And there is good in the midst of it. So look for that and hold on to it.
I have a family who loves me. I got to stand in the Magic Kingdom and watch a nighttime parade with my mom, dad, brother, and sister that made me smile the entire time because it reminded me when we would sit on our dad’s shoulders and watch the Main Street Electrical Parade when we were little. I successfully led my youngest son, four nephews, and niece through a crowded park by myself to meet Darth Vader and got to laugh as they interacted with the Sith Lord. In line at Jungle Cruise, my oldest realized something was wrong and gently placed his hand on my head when we told him I didn’t get the job. My wife, sister, and mom sat with me in front of the Norway Pavilion and listened to me as I admitted that I was scared. I am not alone. Even when I am alone at home, the cat does not leave my side. Christmas is coming and it reminds me that hope does find its way back around to us.