We have one of those messy refrigerators.  Inside and out. You know the kind.  The one with endless notes and random pictures posted on the front.  That’s ours.  The one with a cacophony of food tossed haphazardly in airtight containers on the inside.  That’s ours.

Organized refrigerators are a thing of mystery to me.

Among the disorganized chaos that adorns our fridge hides a quote:  “That which is probable and impossible is better than that which is possible and improbable.” – Aristotle

Last night I overheard my husband and a young man trying to come up with what it could mean.

I know what it means.

You see, I’m a dreamer.  I come up with the impossible, and then I think of ways to make it probable.

I’ve lived a lot of dreams and have breathed deep of the impossible.

But I’ve also tasted the bitterness of the improbable becoming possible.

I’ve sat at the deathbed of a cherished friend taking her last cancer-weakened-breath.  Improbable, but possible.

I’ve held the hands of a friend who has lost five babies to miscarriage or still-birth.  Five.  Improbable, but possible.

I navigated am navigating five years of my own unexplained infertility.  Improbable, but possible.

Just this week, my husband’s days have been filled with visits to the hospital bed of a twenty-three year old suddenly struck with a severe auto-immune disease.  Improbable, but possible.

It gets harder and harder to believe in the impossible when you’ve stared into the face of the improbable.

Yet here in this season of Advent, I can’t escape it.

A baby born to save the world.  Impossible.

Death overcome.  Impossible.

Addictions conquered.  Diseases cured.  Marriages restored.  Impossible.

“Family” meaning more than bloodline and skin color.  Impossible.

Being healed by being broken.  Impossible.

Life coming out of death.  Impossible.

God with us.  Impossible.

Yet probable.  Because of a promise. His promise.  THE promise.

That’s what Advent is.  Looking forward to the impossible future because of what happened in the impossible past.  Celebrating the promise that made it all probable.  The promise kept.  The promise yet to be kept.

So this Advent, I’m choosing to let myself dream about the impossible again.  I don’t know if any of my impossibles will become probable.

But ‘tis the season of the impossible.  What’s yours?