Surely there is a future, and your hope will not be cut off.
The greatest of these is love. While that’s true, I think the second greatest of these is hope. Or for some people it might be the greatest of these. Hope is what keeps us going. Hope keeps us from being despondent. Hope lets us continue to trudge on, even as countries fall apart, pandemics rage, illnesses continue.
In hope there is a sense of expectation; we know it’s not objective or factual. Hope enters the realm of wishing and dreaming and aspiring. Without hope, we cannot imagine much about tomorrow that’s good. Tomorrow becomes the sad result of today’s sad events. Hope changes that, and lets us think of better things, of better times.
Hope feels more tenuous, more fragile. I like the idea that my ability to be hope-full comes from forces outside me. True, it’s up to me to apply that hope, but sometimes, I feel like I’m hopeful despite every rational fact I see. I like the idea that my hope will not be cut off. I always have the opportunity and invitation to hope. More important, I always have the capacity to hope.
It’s interesting to think about hope and those who are really really in a bad place. People in the ICU because of the pandemic, people in Afghanistan, the homeless and with a serious brain disorder. I believe they have the same invitation to hope, and the same capacity. They just might not know it. Our job, I believe, is to remind others about their God-given capacity to be hopeful, rather than in despair. Our job is to love people enough so they see that for themselves.
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