On Hope & Grace

"Hope is for the people who have not yet found grace."

This is the quote I left you to ponder on a few weeks ago. I've put a lot of thought into it since then. I'm not quite sure why, but it really wiggled itself into my brain and embedded itself there. It's one of those things that can be looked at from many different angles, and here are my many thoughts on it at present.

Hope, according to dictionary.com, means, "the feeling that what is wanted can be had or that events will turn out for the best". To me, hope is the thing that drives us forward, pushing us on in life. Without hope, why would we keep on running? Without hope, how could we keep moving forward even when things are difficult? If not for hope, wouldn't we just give up? Whether it is hope in God or hope that we'll get that promotion, or hope that our loved one battling an illness will get the needed cure... hope is what keeps us looking to that goal. When the hope is gone, so is the drive and the vision.

The past year has been, for me, hell on earth. I've lost so much. I've been broken so many times. I feel as though what thin shreds of hope I had and was hanging on to with my little fingers have been snapped and forcefully yanked from my existence. I've experienced death in ways I had not yet experienced. Not only in the death of a dear loved one, but also in the death of a dream. With these deaths I feel as though I've experienced yet another death... and that is of whatever hope and innocence I had left. There's nothing like watching someone you love gasp her last breaths to hit you upside the head with real life. It's hard to believe the world is an alright place after that. And after having to die to a dream, it's impossible to keep your naivety.

Almost two years ago, I wrote about what I thought was a loss of something dear to me. It's so hard for me now to read that and see just how naive to the world I was. Are you kidding me? I cried over a house? A house? Two years can really change a person. I've grown so much since then and so much has changed. In some ways, good and in other ways, bad. Either way, I'm not the same person at all. Dreams have died, people have died, hope has died, and along with them some of me has died. I'd like to think that part of that death is not only my naivety but also some of my insensitivity and some of my immaturity. I look at things differently now. I don't debate until I'm blue in the face anymore. I try to walk a mile in someone's shoes instead of just speaking to them in Christianese.

I'd like to say that my faith has grown, but in reality some of it has died too. Not all of it. There's still plenty to keep me going on, but it's not the same. I don't look at the church the same, nor do I look at God in the same way. I've been hit with the harsh reality that His knowledge and sovereignty far surpass my dreams and desires and hope. Even when you know His way is best, sometimes it still hurts.

In many ways, hope to me has become a pain in the neck. I've been saying for the past year that the higher your hopes, the more they hurt when they come crashing down on you. It seems like it would be easier to not hope at all. But without hope, we would cease to move. Or at least *I* would cease to move. And unless we're moving, we won't reach our destination. What is that destination, you ask? For me and I'm sure for many of you as well, it has always been grace. Just as I see hope as the thing that drives us forward, I see grace as the thing we're moving towards. The resting place where we can hang our hats and find something else we hope for - peace. I believe it is impossible to find peace if you're not in grace ("grace" here meaning God's freely given grace and favor). So I guess this is why that quote hit me so deeply. I've been hoping and hoping and not finding what I want... but what I want apparently isn't what I need. My hope was misplaced, and has been dying a slow and painful death. What is left is me, bare and broken, on this road supposedly moving towards my destination via a very painful detour.

His grace is sufficient, but I've been so caught up in hope that I've failed to rest in that fact. If I can just find that grace and rest in it, the little-left hope, which can be wishy-washy and uncertain, will turn into something much more steadfast. Faith. While hope is just that... hope... "I hope for such and such", I see faith as a firm belief. You don't just hope for it to be, you know it will. And if I'm in grace, my will aligned with His, then my faith will be true and aimed where it should. Not where I might want it to be, but where He wants it to be... and I'll know that even though this world is harsh and kills my hopes and dreams... my faith will never fail me because it is in Him.

The hope drives me towards grace. In that grace I can rest and find peace in the One who never fails me. Realizing this and standing on it is faith. So for me (and the Prison Break dude, perhaps) hope is for the people who have not yet found grace... because once you find His grace, it's all you really need.