Hope in a Hopeless World
I planned to write this blog on Saturday. I wanted to write this on Saturday. But Saturday it was pouring down rain, the sky was so grey and so dark, and when I sat in front of my computer ALL I wanted to do was take a nap. Until next Tuesday, maybe longer. I could not shake the non-stop thoughts of how mentally and physically tired I was, and how sad I was for some smart, hard-working people I knew who’d recently lost their jobs in one of the layoffs we hear about lately with depressing frequency. And how concerned I was about the safety and wellbeing of a friend in Ukraine. And how overwhelmed I felt with all the things I needed to do and never seemed to get ahead of.
And this was only a glimpse into my life and a handful of people I know! Don’t even get me started on the news.
We live in a sad, messed up world.
Not surprisingly, I did not write the blog on Saturday. I made carb-heavy hot ham and cheese sandwiches for my family, and we all watched a movie. And that night, I didn’t sleep so well, just as I hadn’t for several nights.
The next day, I woke up and immediately needed to get busy making food for a commitment we’d volunteered for at lunch. My whole morning evaporated before my eyes, and I hadn’t done anything on my “list” yet! 😬
I planned to write this blog on Sunday. I wanted to write this blog on Sunday. But Sunday the sun was shining, and for one unexpected reason or another, I ended up spending the whole day with other people. It was exactly what I needed. It wasn’t planned, I did not do the many important things on my list, it is not what I thought I needed. Those things on the (dreaded) list aren’t going to do themselves, afterall! But it turns out staying inside my head, inside my 4 walls, and working on my list was not going to stop the de-press-ing thoughts running through my mind. Time outside, even though it was cold, and time with friends was exactly what I needed to get out of the negative spiral I was in.
I was reminded of why I wanted to start this blog in the first place - to focus on what is good in our world. We spend so much time looking at what is not, when we are surrounded by beauty and goodness and hope, if we have eyes to see it.
Thomas Merton said, “That’s the meaning of hope…to trust in the ultimate goodness of creation. Hope doesn’t mean an anticipation or expectation of a deliverance from an intolerable or oppressive situation or condition.… That’s what most of us are doing most of the time: wanting something other than what is. As I said—true hope is trusting that what we have, where we are, and who we are is more than enough for us as creatures of God.”
Especially in this cold, hard winter, can we please help each other remember the true nature of hope? Not the ‘hope we win the lottery’ kind of hope - the ‘God’s got this’ kind of hope. The ‘God loves me and you and that dead-looking tree’ kind of hope. The hope we have because we know it will turn out good in the end. Even if it’s not the ‘good’ we expect. After all, whoever thought the Messiah would end up crucified? Talk about trust! What hope! And what an example of hope and trust in the midst of suffering, darkness and doubt.
Today, on this day when none of the situations that keep me up at night have changed, that is the kind of hope I’ll cling to. And I will trust that indeed God does have it, and it is good that I don’t.