I couldn’t quite wrap my mind around it.
I sat. I walked. I tried several approaches, but there it all was…so much. Friends who were told they no longer had a job after decades. Friends whose grandbaby was born too prematurely to survive. A friend whose father died, and the grief was compounded with guidelines and complications associated with COVID. Racial tension and inequality. Political divisiveness. Mean-spirited abuse in marriages and families.
But then I heard about a local employer who was generously reaching out to employees and the community, prompting employees to feel comforted and supported by their workplace’s COVID guidelines instead of inconvenienced or ignored. I learned of a pregnancy and birth that defied the odds. An acquaintance received medical news she had been waiting for a long time to hear. I processed with a college student about her experiences and conversations with others in her community.
None of the good outweighed the bad. The joy and relief of some didn’t cancel the anguish and heartache of others. But it provided the context of hope. It reminded me of the importance of that context.
Hope doesn’t erase the pain. It doesn’t purge the turmoil or ease the uncertainty. It provides context. Hope stands firm before, during, and after the good and the bad. Hope is one of the least chaotic things I know.
Sometimes hope feels elusive, perhaps a bit like sand. The grains easily slip through an open hand but can also be formed into something beautiful and more lasting. And there is certainly a lot—more than enough—of it.
Place today in the context of hope.
I have another friend who has been given an unexpected diagnosis, but who is meeting the challenge head on with her usual strong faith. She told her family, “we’ve had bumps and hills before, this is just another one we have to climb.” She took care of their mom for years as her Alzheimer’s progresses until she became bed bound and friend could not handle the physical part. (Oftentimes this is what becomes an issue.) She babysits her grandkids…all 5-6 of them (I have lost count.)
And now she has had brain surgery and is starting chemotherapy.
We’d had a minor disagreement on Facebook when she took issue with my position in certain stores remaining open in defiance of government orders. Many people said I should just unfriend her on Facebook. I couldn’t do it. So glad now I did not. We have since talked many times, and that was before her health took this turn. Somehow God was tapping on my shoulder again.
Thank God for his shoulder taps…and for your sensitivity to those taps and the courage to follow him even when it is difficult!