Nebraska Synod ELCA

By Pr. Judy Johnson

When I was a child growing up on a farm near Hampton, Neb., I remember hoping for many things for Christmas:  a doll that could walk and talk (I think her name was Chatty Cathy), anything except clothes for presents, and a Cinderella wristwatch.  Although my hopes weren’t fully realized, it was okay.  Being the fifth of nine children, I knew that resources were limited and that it was a treat to get any gifts.  But it didn’t stop me from hoping.

Hope is an important part of my life.  I thank my late parents for much of that.  Both were children of the Great Depression who didn’t let life’s difficulties get them down.  They had faith that God would provide, and He did.  They hoped that, even when things were tough, there would be better days ahead, and there were, indeed, better days.

The most important thing my parents shared was their faith–and hope–with all of us kids by the way they lived. Even when they lost nearly everything during the farm crisis of the 1980s, I never heard my parents complain or be bitter, never ask God why this had happened to them.  And they didn’t lose their faith–or hope.  At Dad’s funeral, the pastor read a short statement that Dad had written:  “God has been good to us,” he wrote.  “We’ve always had enough to eat and to spare.”

It’s a lesson I try to remember: to be thankful and hopeful in all situations, knowing that we don’t have to go through life’s hard times alone.  We are, as St. Paul writes, “more than conquerors through Him who loved us.”

It doesn’t always feel like we are conquerors, though.  When disappointments come, when we don’t get the job we have been hoping for, when the health we’ve taken for granted fails, and we don’t know what our future will look like, it’s easy–and normal–to be discouraged, even angry.

When those times have come in my life (and they have come), God has been right beside me, prompting me to remember what I was taught as a child:  “I will never leave you or forsake you;” “All things work together for good to those who love God, who are called according to His purpose;” and “I am with you always, even unto the end of the age.”

Those verses and others reassured me when I was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 2005 and was afraid it could prevent me from going into the TEEM Program (Theological Education for Emerging Ministries) to become an ordained minister in the ELCA.  Then-Bishop David deFreese put my fears to rest, telling me that it doesn’t matter to God whether or not I could walk.

I completed TEEM and was ordained in August 2009.  I’ve been at St. Paul’s Lutheran and Elim Lutheran Churches of rural Hooper as a vicar from 2006 to 2009 and as their pastor since then.  I’m so thankful I didn’t give up hope.  All things have worked together for good, just as God promises.

Advent is a season of hope, of expectation, of looking to what God has done, is doing, and will do in our lives.  St. Paul put it well in Romans 15:13, when he wrote, “May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope.”  That’s my Advent hope as well.