Often we believe that in order to have hope we need to see an absence of struggle or conflict on the horizon… smooth sailing ahead. The way we think of the birth of Jesus doesn’t help either,  we hear phrases from our favourite Christmas carols in our heads and we risk losing the reality of the events of that night. Jesus came into the world through pain and struggle and his birth triggered a storm that the prophet Simeon told Mary “would pierce her soul.” Hope isn’t the absence of pain and struggle, it is an anchoring to Jesus, the one who calms the storm and walks on top of the waves and the one who can bring us through whatever we face today.