Hope is Not a Delicate Thing
“Even if the hopes you started with are dashed, hope has to be maintained.”
Hope, what a word.
To cling to hope by a thread but to still hold on takes a heck of a lot of courage.
It’s not easy to be hopeful, to get up every morning with cracked lips, bruised knuckles, and blood-stained teeth, hoping, praying, and wishing that today might be the day it all changes.
But still, we rise. Every morning. And give it another go.
Hope is not a delicate thing.
One of my favorite books of the New Testament is the book of Romans.
In Romans 12:12, Paul writes,
Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer.
To be joyful in hope.
To find the silver lining in the storm clouds. To still cling by a thread, but by goodness, to still hold on. To find the indomitable within us.
To be patient in affliction.
To know that even the darkness must pass, but that even in the darkness, there is learning to be had, memories to be made of light pouring through, and fellowship and opportunities to draw closer to Him and one another.
I believe God does some of his greatest work when the storm is its largest within us.
Most of us can probably look back and see how God sheltered us throughout that tumultuous journey, even though it didn’t feel like He was there at the time.
To be faithful in prayer.
To never give up that seedling of hope. To continue to rise and rise again, even when it doesn’t make sense. To lay your burdens down at the feet of the one who matters, and cares, and loves you most.
In truth, I’ve had a rough go at it the past few months.
Your twenties are hard. That’s what my mom keeps telling me. And trust me, I believe her.
They are hard.
And I’ve had to face the daunting task of realizing you never stop growing up, and you never stop making mistakes. That’s just life.
Mistakes will be made, lessons will be learned.
Living, learning, and growing.
But, my goodness, do I wake up every morning with the hope that I’ll get it right this time around?
Yes.
Because hope is not a delicate thing.
No matter how many times I’ve failed, or how many times I’ve fallen short, or cried out to God the night before, every morning, without fail, He restores in me a new and hopeful heart.
And it makes me wonder why.
Why would the God of the universe care so much to instill hope in me time and time again?
The answer, in my humble opinion, is a lot simpler than we probably realize.
Because without hope, we are nothing.
And God came down to earth to become our living hope.
I think back to the Old Testament stories, of the people waiting for a Deliverer, for a star in the sky to appear, and for the Redeemer to be born.
I think of the Israelites in Egypt who were led out of captivity by Moses and how God parted the Red Sea, I think of Abraham and Sarah’s hopes to have a child and through faithfulness be gifted with a generation so vast it would rival the stars in the sky, I think of the prophet Isaiah penning prophecies of a child king to be born in Bethlehem instill hope again and again that the Prince of Peace would soon come, I think of David, who made so many mistakes but continued to pursue God.
And why?
Why did they wait so long? Why did they cling to some unseen force for decades, generations and millenia?
Because hope is not a delicate thing.
And the God of hope is not delicate, either.
If I could share with you any true nugget of advice, it would be to cling to hope with all you’ve got, to weather the storm, to try and try again every morning, because He is walking with us every step of the way, and even when it all feels hopeless, sometimes, that is when they hope begins to take it’s greatest form.
P.S.,
One of my favorite “social media” apps is Pinterest.
Recently, I have been compiling boards of pins that make me feel warm and fuzzy inside, leaving a lingering feeling of hope and light and warmth.
I have attached some of my favorites below.
