Hope

There is a vulnerability to hope, and this is a source of its power. When we move into hope we accept that we are not in control, that we have little or no power to effect what it is we desire. We are daring to trust in the Holy One, to cling to the promise that the Spirit of the Living God is active in, around, and through us.

We most readily give in to hope when we cannot imagine a way through, when our only option is to turn to our God who makes a way where there is no way and makes rivers flow in the desert. Once we have trusted and known ourselves saved, nourished, sated, guided, restored, held - then we begin to move to trust more readily. We begin to be more at home with moving with the Spirit, with not knowing exactly where we are going, with actually believing that all shall be well eventually because, as Julian of Norwich wrote, there is a Force of Love in the Universe that holds us and never lets us go.

I am trying to lean into Trust, to listen for the guidance of the Spirit, to move out of anxiety through prayer, to not buy into the illusion that I can control much at all. It is a more free way to live, and there is more security in it. Trusting God won't stop suffering from coming into our lives. There is still the hard, the painful, the awful, the frightening, the not-enough. And we are never alone in those things. We are never bereft or desolate. We are aware of an invisible power (sometimes made visible by the Love-bearing people who surround you) that holds and sustains you no matter what.

There is much to learn about hope and trust and how to live our lives faithfully in God. Let's practice. When we get it wrong God will be there to pick us up. We can trust that.