Hope springs

Spring is here in all her glory. Each morning I go out to see what is coming up in my flower garden. New life and hope are abounding.

I have different kinds of hope in my life. Sometimes my hopes are just part of my day — I hope it doesn’t rain, or that the light stays green so that I can make it through the intersection or that Kroger has Haagen Dazs ice cream on sale (mint chocolate chip!)

But I also have weightier hopes on my heart — for health and happiness for my family members, for justice and peace in our mixed-up world. I hope that I am doing my part.

Hope can be tricky. It’s like walking a tightrope that stretches between our expectations on one end and our fear of being disappointed on the other. If I set my expectations too high, I risk getting them dashed. Set them too low, or not at all, and I risk living a dull monotonous life.

Hope has let most of us down at some point in our lives and sometimes the safest route seems to be to give up. Why even dare to hope for change or a better outcome when the odds are stacked against us?

But hope can be a motivator. Hope can get us out of bed in the morning and help us keep putting one foot in front of the other. Hope for a better world can push us to call our senators, give a donation, or volunteer at the food bank.

I found this wonderful quote:

“Hope is patience with the lamp lit.”- Tertullian

We all need to see a light at the end of our hopes, encouraging us to keep going.

So even when life gets hard, I choose to be hopeful. Hope doesn’t have to be a mindless Pollyanna attitude of ‘things will turn out okay in the end’. Life doesn’t always have a happy ending in this world. My hope is fluid and changes as circumstances and my expectations shift.

Faith and hope are tied up together and we can’t have one without the other. The author of Hebrews said it like this:

What is faith? It is the confident assurance that something we want is going to happen. It is the certainty that what we hope for is waiting for us, even though we cannot see it up ahead. (Hebrews 11:1, TLB)

We can hope with the certainty that if we fall from the tightrope while we are struggling to navigate expectations and disappointment, God will be there to catch us. That safety net gives me the courage to keep hoping with trust.