Hopeful?

Awe was interesting on sunday, again short in numbers but I guess that's not a measure really, quality not quantity. The advent prayer worship trick worked quite well. Numbered envelopes were adhered to the wall, so that cards could be dropped in place and attenders were asked to write a prayer of intercession in a card and place into an available envelope on the wall (we were then supposed to use this as a prayer station later in the service, but ran out of time). JT then led a discussion around advent, looking at the 'hope' aspect of the advent season. The hope of the coming saviour in christ a couple of thousand years ago and the hope of the church for his return however we might imagine that. We were then asked 'what do you hope for' and I really struggled, what do i hope for? I couldn't think of anything that sprang straight to mind, JT spoke of issues like apartheid that as a student he had hoped would be abolished, and we talked about social justice 'hopes', but they didn't really seem realistic. Even though the abolition of something as huge as apartheid would've been unthinkable a few years before it actually happened, when I look at things like sustainable energy I find it hard that people could take on such a vision without any financial gain. For instance in these health centres we are building at work we have had these sustainabilty surveys carried out on the design showing how solar panels and wind turbines can be incorporated into the design, but when these things are put through the financial models the energy saving is not cost effective against the installation and maintenance of the energy producing devices and therefore they won't be included in the final building. However, I'm digressing, but you can see the kind of 'hopeless' air I have around things, and trying to think of a personal hope was still not forthcoming. Then a little glimour of a thought appeared and that was the kind of idea from 'it's a wonderful life where george bailey gets to see a vision of what life would be like for his family and friends if he hadn't been born. That idea that you can have some kind of positive effect on people and their lives is something that I guess I hope for. In someway I hope that not only have I made an impact as a friend, but that through me a glimour of the love of christ and the nature of god has also been revealed. Later in the service as we meditated on the question what would you do/pray if you knew there was 5 days to christmas/christ's second coming/your death, these ideas began to crystallise, if I had a short time I would want to spend time with those people who I wanted to leave an 'impression' on, my friends and family that in someway I would live on in their memories and leave a 'footprint' of christ.