Life is filled with ups and downs… this fact doesn’t take long for most of us to acknowledge. But the older I get, the more life I experience and the more I choose to see what’s going on around me, the more my eyes are opened to the reality of this sin-torn, fallen world.
I am a sensitive person. I take in what other people are feeling or dealing with to such a degree that I have to be very careful even with the kind of media I consume. Like I get INVOLVED with the story line and have a difficult time compartmentalizing the story from reality. So I’m sure you can imagine how all-consuming real life situations can become for me – whether happy or sad. It is usually quite easy for me to rejoice with those who are rejoicing and mourn with those who are mourning. I view this quality as a gift, but also am continuing to learn how to steward it because there is the potential that my emotions could be controlled by the situations swirling around me.
Within the past year or so there has seemed to be an onslaught of difficult situations that have either touched my life directly or the life of someone very dear to me (which with how I function is almost the same thing). I say this NOT to stir up sympathy for myself because I fully recognize that we all go through difficult seasons. I say this only to give context. There has been child-loss, miscarriage, breakdown of relationships and family, confusion within ministry and difficult decisions. There has been country-wide (Haiti) chaos and increased national instability. There has been community issue on top of community issue and the ever-present evil of poverty that loves to rear its ugly head in a manifold of ways. I hate to sound so pessimistic, but these are the realities that we have seen and been walking through.
I have had several conversations with different friends (both in and out of Haiti) about how to keep hope alive with all of these terrible things staring you in the face. I do NOT want to become that old angry missionary who has lost all love for people and all hope for change. How do we look at the harsh realities of life and keep hope alive? How do we endure the same conversation with the same person for the hundredth time and hope that maybe THIS time they will understand? That maybe THIS time there will be breakthrough? That maybe THIS time change will happen?
I have so many questions and am continuing to process through this (and honestly think I will be for a long time), BUT the truth that God keeps bringing me back to is that love “bears all things, believes all things, HOPES all things, endures all things.” (1 Corinthians 13:7) I want to be a woman filled and overflowing with the love of our perfect Father. That means that hope will flow through me into any and all situations. Hope that God will show Himself faithful. Hope that healing and restoration will happen. Hope that things can and will get better. Hope that today is the day of salvation. Hope that a miracle will happen. Hope for revival. Hope that Love will have His way.
I don’t have many practical answers on how to keep hope alive, but one thing I am standing on is that “in His great mercy He has given us new birth into a LIVING HOPE through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.” (1 Peter 1:3 NIV)
To keep hope alive in my heart and life I must continue clinging to Jesus. I must remember that although it seemed that all was lost as Jesus hung on the cross, that He rose victorious over death, over sin and that He resurrected as our Living Hope. And as we follow in His footsteps, no matter what may come, HOPE is alive within us!