Hope: The Thread God Wove Through Every Rejection”
1st Week of Advent Personal Reflection by RB, a Courage member
Photo by Alexander Grey on Unsplash
Advent invites me into a hope that is not passive but confident, a trust that God is guiding and renewing me, just as Isaiah 40 declares. “Comfort my people” reminds me that God sees every struggle and rejection. Nothing I’ve been through is wasted; each hardship is part of His shepherding.
When I look back, I see a rhythm in my life: teaching, mission, pruning, and sending, over and over. God brings me to places where what I’ve learned can bless others, then lovingly prunes me again. That pruning is often painful and humbling, yet it prepares me for a deeper mission.
Rejection has been a familiar theme. My Singapore PR journey stretched across multiple jobs and years—each attempt ending with the same line: “We regret to inform you…” My career was another spiritual bootcamp: a draining first job, a second job with constant blame, and self-esteem crushed to the point of wanting to go back from Singapore to the Philippines. Yet God sent lifelines, an HR who believed in me, a fresh start, and finally a job that took me to Switzerland. Later, illness hit me hard, leading to poor performance and that painful question again: “Lord, why?”
My relationships told another story. I trained myself to stay emotionally detached, pretending to enjoy a “single, drama-free life,” while quietly wrestling with my identity and faith. Illness and anxiety shattered that façade. Longing for love, I searched in all the wrong places until God led me to Courage, where faith and my sexuality could breathe together.
Healing took years of prayers, retreats, recollections, and honest inner work. I learned that pleasing everyone without boundaries is not the right way. The turning point came when I realized that healing begins with caring for myself—physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. Through it all, hope never left me.
In the end, God’s redirection became clear: Singapore PR wasn’t for me because He was leading me to my US Permanent Residency. My career wounds became training grounds. My relationships became formation, not failure.
My lessons: Failure shapes success. Rejection is God’s redirection. I cannot fulfil God’s mission if I keep abandoning myself. And often, God’s answer is already right in front of me, while I wait for a burning bush.
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God Makes Room in Promise
Reflection for the 1st week of Advent
The Prophet Isaiah speaks to a people still weary in exile (Isaiah 40:1–5, 9–11). This Advent, God’s first movement towards us is the same: not judgment, but with comfort and tenderness. Even before we repent and convert or feel worthy to respond, God says, “Comfort, comfort my people.”
Our lives have wildernesses – places of loneliness, fatigue, old wounds, and fears. We often feel abandoned or un-rooted. But God calls us “my people,” binding His identity to ours. This promise of belonging is His active love at work.
We cannot level the mountains of our obstacles or fill the valleys of our pains and despair. But God promises to prepare the way in our wilderness: “Every valley shall be lifted up, and every mountain and hill be made low.” God acts first. He is the Shepherd who gathers, carries, and gently leads us home. Strength and tenderness come together in His love.
Our spiritual life begins not by striving, but by receiving this comfort. Our first task this Advent is to allow ourselves to allow God to hold us close to Him.
For Reflection
- Where is the wilderness in my life right now?
- Where is God trying to comfort me?
- What obstacles do I need God to level?
- Where do I long to come home to?
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Reflections on the Artwork
Moses who designed the artwork for this year’s Advent Reflection writes:
It is sometimes more comfortable remaining in familiarity. Even my own hurts have a familiar texture that I’ve come to recognize and dwell in. I often look down – having been overwhelmed by the many things going on in my life – loneliness, failed career plans, discord in the family. I wonder if even God is tired of all these.
During our Courage Advent Retreat 2025: Love Makes Room, I’ve come to realize God’s faithfulness in my life. He is the constant light, streaming into the rooms of my heart. It is I who have grown fatigued. There is only a need for me to look up. Light is flooding in! There’s a whole new space God is inviting me to move toward. In my prayers, I feel the Lord’s invitation to look up and out. Out of the old into a new spaciousness this Advent.
The Lord invites you and me to a more expansive space. Will we look up to see what we are being invited to? Can we trust and look towards it? Lord, help us savour how good your love is, especially when it opens up space.