Hope (& Perseverance)
I’ve been hearing, reading, and thinking a lot about hope lately. In my own mind I call this my “email of God’s love” so writing about hope may seem off-topic. More on that later.
I follow a group called Mockingbird Ministries, “an organization devoted to ‘connecting the Christian faith with the realities of everyday life.’” They have a magazine, they publish books, have several podcasts and conferences. One of the writers/speakers from Mockingbird is named Sarah Condon and she gave a talk at their latest conference called “Hope for the Home-Lost.” It’s an awesome talk I highly recommend you listen to (links below*). She tells the story of her parents’ shocking death in a car accident that killed them both. It’s hard to imagine the horror of having that happen to you. And Sarah was devastated by it. She couldn’t function. She literally could not get out of bed.
Sarah points us to the verses in Romans 5, where, she says, “We are told in Scripture that suffering is actually the pathway to hope,...which sucks.”
And we boast in the hope of the glory of God.
Not only so, but we also
glory in our sufferings,
because we know that
suffering produces perseverance;
perseverance, character;
and character, hope.
And hope does not put us to shame,
because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit,
who has been given to us.
Sarah goes on to say, “I hate the word perseverance. It sounds like the name of a High School yearbook for a naval ship. Yet this is exactly the word that has guided my journey through suffering.” She tells story after story of various people who persevered on her behalf when she was incapable of it.
I’ve written about hope a lot in my blog. Pretty much everyone who talks or writes about why they have hope tells stories about people who have done good or kind or brave things when it was inconvenient or even dangerous. I think that’s what Sarah means when she says people persevered on her behalf. When we persevere after something awful happens, it means we go on living. We do what has to be done. We do what should be done–for ourselves, our loved ones, and strangers in need. Those acts of kindness, goodness, and bravery are what persevering is.
And those acts are what love is, which is why writing about hope in this email of God’s love is very much on topic. God is love. When you do something kind or good or brave, you are showing God’s love. When someone does something for you that is kind or good or brave, you are receiving God’s love. When you cannot persevere, when life has overwhelmed you, it’s Jesus who gives you the strength to go on living, to do what has to be done anyway, or who provides the friend who helps you.
This might sound flippant and I don’t mean it that way. There’s no magic. You don’t suddenly fill up with strength. Sarah also says this is not a “linear plan.” We don’t stop suffering and then move on to persevering, then from there move on to having our character change, and then from there we have hope, and we’re all good. It doesn’t work that way. “All these things are true at the same time. It is, like so many things, ‘cross-shaped,’ constantly intersecting.”
I realize, too, that there are no guarantees you will feel the hope and love of God immediately when you are overwhelmed. You may feel you have no one to turn to. We always have God to turn to but this might be hard.**
I have a hard time explaining why this song by Florence and the Machine*** (shout out to my daughter Cori who is a big fan) feels like it fits with what I’ve written about hope. But it does. Maybe it’s that repetition of “...picks me up, puts me down,...chews me up, spits me out…” Life often feels like that. Then she sings, “But I hear music, I feel the beat, and for a moment when I’m dancing I am free.” She sings, “To exist in the face of suffering and death and somehow still keep singing.” I don’t know if Florence is a Christian. I have a feeling she is someone who is wrestling with her faith. I think the music that makes her (and us) dance, that keeps her (and us) singing, that makes her (and us) free is hope. It’s God’s love.
My prayer for all of us is that we are filled with hope, at the center of which is God’s love.
* Sarah Condon’s speech video (starts at 1:10:21), audio.
**National Suicide Prevention Lifeline, 1-800-273-8255.
*** “Free” by Florence and the Machine (in Spotify)
“Free” by Florence and the Machine (YouTube video)