Some days you wonder how to take the next step, how to keep moving forward with purpose and determination (and maybe even joy?) when you’re walking a road that you didn’t choose and you don’t particularly like. You wonder how you will find the grit and determination and strength to just live through another unforeseen challenge.
How do you tune your heart and your ears to the voice of the Good Shepherd when the devil and his minions are relentlessly shouting lies and throwing distractions your way? You’re living a hard thing, maybe even a hard season. The details of your hard thing probably look different from mine and different again from the woman in front of you in the grocery line who would not meet your gaze or return your smile. We all woke up with that same feeling of trepidation this morning, all struggled to swallow breakfast over that lump in our throats. But here we are at mid-afternoon, looking back at the moments we met with patience and courage, and looking ahead to the evening with just a glimmer of hope.
In retrospect, the day looks like a medley of small battles won; a wider lens shows a lifetime of battles, some small and some quite large. Many of those battles are battles lost. And this new one? It feels formidable. From where does the strength come to fight another day when it seems like a losing battle in an unrelenting war? And what is winning, anyway?
Winning is choosing hope. It’s choosing to stay in the fight and refusing to relinquish the desire for something and the expectation of obtaining it. Hope is not a Santa list. It is a virtue, not a wish. Desire propels us forward. We desire heaven, of course. But we also desire to know God’s goodness here, to live in the kingdom of heaven on earth. Still, there is brokenness everywhere we look. The world seems so littered with the rubble of battles. It’s hard some days to see through the smoke and push away the debris. It’s hard to take a breath deep enough to be ready for the next skirmish.
Hope is the understanding that God will help us in the battle. He will strengthen our wills and fortify us. God infused hope in you and me. But hope, like faith, needs our care. It’s a gift similar to a precious orchid in full flower when we receive it. Hope dies if it’s not tended. Hope believes that God has something better for us. God wants us to have a life that flowers in its fullness and blooms continually. Hope is truly knowing that God is for us, not just in eternity, but here and now. It is hope that sustains us when the battles begin to come at us hard and fast and the war is overwhelming.
Life doesn’t just gently rain hope on us as we stand in the dust and smoke of the battlefield. It doesn’t work that way. We need to nurture hope, lest it dry up and wither away.
Hope flourishes in a soul that is open and ready, cupped and curved toward the One who wants to pour himself generously. You have to step up. Stand in line at the confessional. Remember that the Eucharist is available every day. Stay in a state of grace because that’s when we are most receptive to all three of the most powerful weapons in the war: hope, faith and love.
Winning today’s battle — and ultimately the war — is really as simple as staying in the fight. The last battle is won; remember that in order to remain steady in the fight you face in the here and now. Look back again at the medley of skirmishes you’ve faced over a lifetime. Grace gives you eyes to see all the ones where God was rescuer and redeemer, provider and protector. Make a list, an actual pen and paper list. Give thanks again for his faithfulness in those moments.
It is gratitude that waters the roots of hope. And hope pushes faith through the dirt and debris where it turns its face to the Son. Love flowers — deep abiding love in the here and now. Love that envelops you even as you sit in the midst of the mess and assures you that there is more. More goodness in this world, and much more goodness in eternity.
Foss, whose website is takeupandread.org, writes from Connecticut.
