Advent Hope

Carolyn Klejment-Lavin

MA, LPC/A, NCC

12/14/2025

This time of year, we are inundated with the message that Christmas is “the most wonderful time of the year.” Yet as a counselor, I regularly see the opposite: increased stress, loneliness, emotional overwhelm, and a heightened awareness of what feels missing. The pressure to feel joyful can leave many people feeling disconnected from their own experience and wondering what they may be doing wrong.

The first week of Advent focuses on hope, and while the first week is already behind us, the entire Advent season calls to remember the hope that was required in that first Christmas. The first Christmas was not cozy or calm. It was marked by uncertainty, fear, displacement, and waiting. Mary and Joseph needed to hold on to a determined hope rooted in trust that God was at work and would fulfill His promises, even when circumstances were challenging and felt bleak.

Scripture reminds us that this is the nature of hope: “For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what they already have?” (Romans 8:24 NIV). Hope, by definition, means living in the tension of what is not yet.

I recently read that an often unnamed but key aspect of hope involves grieving, because if we are hoping, we need to admit things are not as they should be. We grieve what has been lost, what never was, or what still hurts. That grief does not weaken hope—it clarifies why we need it. And why we can ultimately have hope is Jesus, because Jesus showed us that God is not done yet, and we can know the story ends well. 

Our ultimate hope is Jesus. In Christ, God entered the brokenness and showed us that the story is not over. Advent reminds us that God is not done yet—and that is enough to keep going, even here.