Hope

In the Bible we're told that love is the greatest of faith, hope and love...maybe it is, but I sure think hope has to come a pretty equal second. See without hope, life is just bleak, dark...if not just plain black. It's without hope that people end up committing suicide because how can anyone continue when there is nothing to hold onto? Hope is very powerful.

Many times, people say to me that they don't want to hope too much that a set of circumstances will unfold, such as acquiring the ideal job, getting into a study course that they want to do, or having their heart set on a particular place to live. I usually turn around and tell them to hope their heart out because what I've learnt about hope in my life is that it permeates every part of our being. We can't just "hope a little bit" because if we hope AT ALL, then we hope a lot. We will be equally disappointed if something we hope for does not come through, so why shouldn't we hope completely and fully? I think its better to enjoy the experience of being excited about something then trying to keep our levels of hope to a minimum.

Sometimes we hope for things that are very serious or scary. For example, a dear friend of mine sat down and prayed that the baby she was caring for would be put out of her misery and go home to heaven. What a thing to hope for! She wasn't hoping this way because she gave up but because she could see how much pain this baby was in and yet God called her to believe that the baby would survive, and survive that baby did! To the point that in a few days, that baby will be leaving the orphanage (that provides medical care to babies when needed) to the babies mother! Sometimes we hope for things because they look the best, and sometimes we might be disappointed something doesn't happen, but sometimes something better...in fact ALWAYS does something better come along.

See, I'm not saying hoping makes life easy, it doesn't. Hope can be downright scary! Right now one of my dear friends is literally dying...I cry for her often, and I hope with all my heart that miracles will occur and she will live a long and healthy life but I have no idea what the outcome will be. Hope is scary because if we genuinely hope, then we end up placing our hope is something far greater then ourselves, for me I believe this to be the Christian God...you might believe in someone else, but at the end of the day, I think its fairly safe to say, that hope requires someone more and greater then ourselves because when we don't get what we have hoped for, sometimes so desperately, we need to trust that there is a plan that is bigger then ourselves...

Ultimately, hope is about trusting that the future is going to work out perfectly, even when it feels like the completely opposite is happening. I want to join my friend that is dying, but for various reasons, right now, I cannot. I want to join my friend who is looking after the babies, but my own health prevents me from doing that. I sit writing this knowing that I have 6 months before I could end up homeless again! (Yes, I did say again.) So I do know what it's like to hope and feel like that hope is dashed...but at the end of the day, everything works out. Because I started studying my (second) masters, I was able to have emergency accommodation and then some university accommodation and then meet a friend who has the potential to be a carer for me and then move into a new area.... on and on it goes... something went horribly wrong, I had nowhere to go...but if I hope, not so much in things but in God...then things work out in the long term.

It's scary and hard, but hope permeates everything, it gives us a reason to get up in the morning. Whenever, you're struggling and it feels like everything is against you...try to hang on to hope...if you can't see something concrete, like a friendship, or a house or something to study, or even getting that brand new TV(!), hang on to the fact that there is someone bigger then us and he's got our best interests at heart. Hope in Him.