Having Hope against all odds is vulnerable, and risky. It is to take one's heart and say BELIEVE when believing is the last thing it wants to do. Having hope in certain situations makes no rational sense.
Placing one's heart in Hope for all the world to see is at best courageous and inspiring, and at worst is an embarrassment, and can leave an exposed and wounded, bereft and confused heart.
We are a family that loves our pets. Our baby of the family, our kitten Hope, has been missing for almost two weeks now. We have no idea of where she is or what may have happened to her. Hope barely ever stepped foot off of our property, or even frolicked in our garden unless we were by her side; rather, she was always sitting at our door or window, waiting to be given the invitation to come inside.
Without God, and thus without Hope, we would believe she's never coming home. We would have to accept the fact that something happened to her, grieve, and get on with it. To have hope that she may return after being gone for two weeks seems completely foolish. Stupid. Asinine. She is a kitten, not a cat. She can not provide for or fend for herself.
If her name were Tiger or Kitty, it would be easier to accept that she's gone and won't be coming back. But her name is Hope, and in this circumstance hope is not so easy to dismiss. As much as I try to shake it off--I can't. Hope clings like an unwanted friend.
If we didn't live at Horizons of Hope, and if God hadn't already taught us to Have Hope even in the darkest of nights, it would be easier to accept what seems to be the truth, the reality, the inevitable.
In this case, in all honesty, I don't want to have hope. It scares me. It feels like a wreckless thing to do with my heart. The emptiness of death already stands at my door. I can feel its cold, dark stare.
Yet I will hope.
I will force my heart to hope.
Though I'd rather guard it
and wrap it 'round with common sense,
I will tell it to BELIEVE.
After all,
He has done greater things than this.
Hope against Hope,
I will believe.
"But hope that is seen
is no hope at all.
Who hopes for what he already has?
But if we hope for what we do not yet have,
we wait for it patiently."
-Romans 8:24
