Yes, I'm late and yes, I'm one of those Christian women who have a word for the year. Don't make too much fun of me. It's a useful practice. My word for 2022 was
hope. I was excited and nervous about it. There is so much to hope in but it also requires being vulnerable because you put part of yourself out there when you hope. It is exhilarating to have high hopes but also discouraging if those hopes come crashing down. Yet we are made to hope. It is what keeps us going, helps us to continue in the mundanity, and creates meaning in our ordinary lives. You've seen movies where a character gives up hope and you see the light go out from their eyes. They have no desire to live or do anything significant because they no longer have hope. We need hope to live as much as we need air to breathe.
So what happens when hope is unfulfilled? What occurs when that hope you've been holding onto doesn't come to pass? Why do you hope if it might get crushed and all you're left with is heartbreak? I've been wrestling with these questions for months as I've had more than one hope unfulfilled in the past year. It is incredibly discouraging. The heartache, pain, sorrow, anger, frustration, and questions are all too real. If you have also felt those emotions and/or others, they are valid. It is okay and normal to feel those things. I hope that you've been able to process them in healthy ways, with those who care about you, and in safe spaces. Hope unfulfilled can lead to despair and depression and while you may not be in total control of it, you are not meant to stay in those places.
I had hopes that I had been putting stock in for months that had unexpected outcomes. They weren't what I had longed for. So what was the point of hoping if it would be for nought? I had wanted something so badly. I had wound some of my hopes and dreams together, for something better, for something new, for something greater. Then they became unraveled until I was left with only threads of what my hope once was. I'll fully admit that it doesn't make me want to hope again. It makes me want to give up, to stop putting my heart out there, to never think that it could be better or different. I've asked God a lot of questions. I've come the Lord so many times with my emotions asking why did I have to hope in the first place if it wasn't going to happen? I truly don't know. I hoped because I'm made to do so. I hoped because that's part of who I am. I hoped because Christ called me to do so.
I haven't gotten many answers. If I'm being honest, I'm still wrestling with some of the hurt and sorrow. The fact that Jesus has told me to hope doesn't make it easier or less painful. Hoping hurts. I'm well aware of that which is why I want to stop and yet why I never will. Because it's not real hope if it doesn't hurt. If it won't wound you in some way if it is unfulfilled, then that's not true hope because your heart isn't in it. It hurts so much because it has become part of me. It is part of how I function, live, and breathe. That's how hope works. It keeps me going day to day just as love does. Hope and love both come with pain, they are eternally linked no matter how much you may try to separate them.
To hope requires courage. Courage means strength of heart. Courage means doing it even though I'm scared. Courage means facing my fear. To hope is to be courageous because it's seeking the light in an incredibly dark world. It means believing even when it all seems lost. That's why hope is so powerful and life-changing. It's also why it's earthshakingly challenging to do. I don't do it alone. He is Emmanuel, God with us, though we are past Christmas. That is the truth that I cling to, the light at the end of the tunnel, the firm foundation I stand upon. I have hope in Christ and His kingdom.
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