Dare to Hope

I learned, early on in life, what I thought was a valuable lesson. That hope usually led to disappointment in life. If you hoped for something, got excited for it, it was bound to fall through or hurt you in some way. So, by the time I reached college, I had my own mantra. It went something like this: Aim for everything. Hope for nothing.

That might seem contradictory. But in my mind, it wasn’t! I had big dreams, you know. I was going to change the world! But…I didn’t want to be disappointed if I didn’t actually make those dreams. So this mantra was my strategy. I would aim high – apply for jobs I wanted, scholarships, work towards goals, even invite someone to come visit me – but I would expect to be turned down. That way, when I didn’t get it, I wouldn’t be disappointed but also couldn’t blame myself for not trying, and if I DID, I’d be excited! All of the happiness, none of the hurt.

I explained my strategy one night to a friend, expecting her to be impressed, but instead, she looked at me and told me I was cynical. I remember being very offended. I wasn’t cynical! In fact, I had more dreams than most people. I was just realistic about them. But her comment shook me enough to put a tiny seed of doubt in my wall and, not too long after, God used that crack to point out a verse to me. 1 Corinthians 13:13: And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

In the past, I’d always done exactly what every pastor does, and used this verse to focus on love. But this time, it struck me differently. My eyes tracked to and stayed on an earlier word. Hope. My heart began pounding in that way it does when you know you are about to realize something you really don’t want to. I tried to move on, but I couldn’t. Hope was one of the remaining items God found important enough to list. But it couldn’t be directed at me, right? I directed that question to God. Right? Hope brings pain. A God who loves me doesn’t want me in pain. He couldn’t possibly be telling me to allow hope back into my life.

And just like that, an image of Christ hanging on the cross popped up in my mind and I could hear God’s soft voice. “Why did I die on the cross?” And just as quickly, the answer whispered through my mind. To bring us hope.

And I knew, in that moment, that I had been wrong. If God was willing to endure so much anguish just to bring humans hope for salvation, who was I to say hope wasn’t worth the pain?

I knew, that day, that I had to change my mantra and figure out a new way forward in life. It took years, I’m not going to lie, and it is still an ongoing struggle for me, allowing hope, but I began to realize something as I tried to figure out how to let hope in while keeping hurt out. By refusing to allow myself hope, I was taking away one of the biggest blessings God gave us to cope with a very hard life. Because what is life without hope? It is a joyless existence. An existence without God. And, in fact, refusing to hope didn’t take away life’s hurts. It only took away life’s joy. I might wait, expecting a call that things had gone wrong, but if I was honest with myself, getting that call never took away the ache inside of me when it happened. Waiting for it, expecting it, simply removed the joy from the every day as I concentrated on what was bad instead of what was good.

I ran across another verse later, one I knew existed but had done my best to ignore. Romans 5:3-4 “…but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope.”

Ironically, it is the hurt in life that produces the hope I was so scared of embracing. And, as the verse goes on to say, hope does not disappoint. No, hope wasn’t the one disappointing me. It was life. Humans. Hope was the thing that could actually help me, even show me how to find joy no matter how dark the forest around me was. But until I allowed myself to embrace it, all I could see was the forest instead of the idyllic moments of hope sprinkled around it, showing me the way through.

And, finally, the verse that I now frequently read to remind myself: Romans 8:24-25 “For in this hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.”

In case anyone is curious – this subject is where my brand and brand name comes in. Forest Idylls – idyllic moments to bring you through the forest. And the snowdrops in my logo? A reminder of hope breaking through the snow, growing underneath the cold.

If I could see the way forward–could see exactly when things were going to get better or go my way, there would be no need for hope, for faith. Hope comes in when you can’t see ahead of you, or what’s growing beneath you. It offers light and glimpses of heaven where there would otherwise be none.