“Yet when I hoped for good, evil came; when I looked for light, then came darkness” (Job 30:26)

I will start by admitting that I am writing from a very painful place right now.  My heart is heavy and my emotions are fueling the pain I feel in my bones.  In these times, it is easy to see the darkness.  That said, I think there is much more darkness around me and others than any of us care to admit.  Cancer.  Molestation.  Addiction.  Murder.  War.  Evil.  There is a lot of darkness in our daily lives.  I also realize there is much more good and light than I see at times.  People are doing things everyday to help others that no one ever knows.  Prayers are raised up.  Acts of kindness and compassion.  Charity and goodwill shared.

Hope is one of those double-edged emotions.  On the one hand, hope inspires and offers a glimpse of what might be.  On the other hand, hope causes me to look at the reality of a situation and see that this present moment is not good even though I choose to believe I will prevail in the end.  Some people are eternal optimists who always believe things will work out and some, like me, walk a fine line with hope that allows for the pain of the situation that is creating the hope.  There is also the potential for a lack of hope.  It leads to a brokenness that is full of pain and may lead to a brokenhearted end.

The challenge of hope is the shaky ground it is often built on.  In my situation, it doesn’t take much for me to want to abandon hope momentarily.  My situation is very hard on me and there are certain markers I have each week that allow me to hold onto that hope.  If the ground shakes and the markers move, my first reaction is to throw up my hands, abandon hope, lay down in a ball and wait to die.  I don’t handle these moments well.  I will admit that.  I do not believe I am a fatalist but I can adopt that attitude at times because my marker changed, moved or disappeared.  Basically, the rope I was pulling on to get me to the shore and dry ground got yanked out of my hand and now I have to paddle while the current is trying to push me back into the sea.  I was so close and then, poof, I have to start over.

That is the dark side of me and my hope.  While I fight that battle, I find myself continuing to hope.  At this point in my journey I cannot explain why I continue to put faith in God.  It would be easy to justify the course of my life as random events and nothing to do with a supreme being that I cannot see or hear or touch.  For some reason, I choose to believe.  Maybe it’s because of a great question a close friend asked me one time.  “What else?  If you won’t believe in God, what will you believe in?”  Belief still gives me someone to call out to.  Belief still gives me someone to hope in.  Belief allows me to think I will prevail at some point.  Belief allows me to stand up after I have been on my knees weeping from the current emotion.  Belief fuels hope for what is much further away than I want but I will hope it’s still out there.

The Stockdale Paradox suggests that I never lose hope but I accept that my present reality is not good, not kind and not forgiving.  Admiral James Stockdale was a prisoner of war who endured torture unlike anything I want to imagine and lived through it.  He is quoted as saying it was the optimists who died in that POW camp because their hearts broke when their optimism was crushed after a year or years of captivity.  He accepted the reality and brutality of his situation while maintaining the hope he would, one day, be free.  He didn’t set a time limit on his hope, just that “one day” it would be realized.

So many would suggest I look for the good in the present moment but they are not in my shoes.  Most do not understand what I am experiencing.  Keep your chin up, be glad you have a paycheck and be thankful for what you do have are all nice sentiments, and maybe they are words to live by to some extent, but they do not make the experience less real within me.  The present moment isn’t good, kind or forgiving compared with the hope I have for what life will be like when my hope is realized.  I must accept that my hope may never be realized.  I may never have the relationships I hope for, the daily life that I hope for, the opportunities I hope for but, while acknowledging those possibilities, I continue to hope boldly for things to happen that make no sense at this moment.

It is hope that both hurts so much for what I do not have and allows me to take one more step forward trusting that God will give me favor and bless me greatly one day.  The pain today is real and it is intense.  It is consumed with a marker that was moved, an opportunity lost, a hope not realized.  Yet more hope remains.  It may not look anything like what I am dreaming it to be in my head but it remains.

Grace and peace.