As a kid, the 24 hours leading up to Christmas were always the longest day of my life. Time fought to stand still, grudgingly giving way to the movement of the clock’s hands.

I wanted the day out of the way in time for the great vigil — an event I never stayed awake long enough to observe: the surreptitious delivery of presents by a visitor in the night.

Now, Advent, that four-week waiting period for Christmas, has assumed its rightful time and place in my adult life.

Advent comes with instructions that are often hard to follow: Slow down, be quiet and meditate on the real reason for the season; prepare for what’s to come.

Try doing that this tumultuous year.

Advent, which ends today, got started on Nov. 27 at my St. Mary’s Episcopal Church with a ceremonial lighting of “Hope,” the first of four candles on the Advent wreath.

In Advent Week One, 14 police officers and 41 militants were killed in clashes in western Uganda, 30 civilians were killed in attacks by militants in Congo, 250,000 civilians were stuck in rebel-held positions in Syria, 2,000 families were displaced in the Philippines due to clashes between government forces and Islamist militants, seven soldiers and three insurgents died in attacks on an Indian army post, Afghan security forces killed 16 Taliban militants, and more than 45 people died from artillery bombardments in Aleppo.

On Dec. 4, for Advent Week Two, we lit the “Peace” candle.

In the six days that followed, at least 20 people were killed in a suspected Russian airstrike in Syria, three people, including two reporters, were shot dead outside a restaurant in Finland, 31 people were killed in clashes in Congo, six Pakistani nationals fishing in the Red Sea were killed after a Saudi airstrike, the war death toll in the Donbas region of Ukraine stood at 9,758 according to a U.N. report, 57 were killed and 177 wounded in twin suicide attacks in northern Nigeria, a suicide bomber killed at least 50 soldiers in Aden, Yemen, and two suicide bombings killed 38 in Istanbul.

In Advent Week Three, which began Dec. 11, St. Mary’s lit the candle of “Joy.”

In that week of joy, a suicide bomber killed 29 and injured 50 in an attack at Somalia’s biggest port in Mogadishu , a bombing in a Coptic Orthodox Christian church in Cairo killed 25 and injured 49, Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte admitted to “personally” killing suspected criminals, 12 troops were killed in an attack on a border post in Burkina Faso, and 13 people were killed and 56 wounded in a car bomb attack on a bus in central Turkey.

For Week Four, which began on Sunday, we lit the “Love” candle. On that day, a suicide bomber killed at least 52 soldiers outside a military camp in southern Yemen, 12 people were killed and dozens injured when a truck rammed a crowded Christmas market in Berlin, and Andrei Karlov, the Russian ambassador to Turkey, was assassinated in Ankara.

As those horrors were unfolding around the world, here at home, Advent candle lights competed with darkness cast by unrepentant 22-year-old white supremacist Dylann Roof, who was found guilty of shooting to death nine black parishioners in an African Methodist Episcopal church in Charleston, S.C., and Abdul Razak Ali Artan, who crashed his car into pedestrians and then attacked bystanders with a butcher knife at Ohio State University.

During that span, some of us may have found gifts of hope, moments of peace, and experienced times of joy and love.

But this season also brings deep feelings of anticipation brought on by the coming of a new president.

For many of his 62,979,879 voters, Donald Trump brings deliverance. He will, they hope and expect, set their world right.

The bulk of the 65,844,954 Americans who voted for Hillary Clinton most likely view Trump’s arrival with dread: a living threat and promise of bad things to come.

The nation is still racked with division as a result of the election campaign. In communities like my own, resignation and resentment are at odds with the holiday spirit.

Which gets me to Santa Claus.

’Twas so simple back then.

He came, dropped off nice stuff, and blew town before anybody knew better.

This real-life adult stuff is harder.

It’s hard to celebrate the promise of Christmas, knowing the existence of evil.

Only the profoundly wicked shoots and kills people at a Bible study, rams a truck into Christmas shoppers, and suicide-bombs innocent men, women and children.

We speak of joy, peace and love, in the midst of an evil that brings suffering and revels in ending human life.

Yet we tell ourselves, because we are told to believe, that “no one is so evil as to be beyond redemption.”

So, the clock’s hands advance toward Christmas, and we hold fast to its eternal message of healing love.

kingc@washpost.com