Gripping Hope

From Lamentations 3 (The Message)

I'll never forget the trouble, the utter lostness,
the taste of ashes, the poison I've swallowed.
I remember it all—oh, how well I remember—
the feeling of hitting the bottom.
But there's one other thing I remember,
and remembering, I keep a grip on hope:

God's loyal love couldn't have run out,
his merciful love couldn't have dried up.
They're created new every morning.
How great your faithfulness!
I'm sticking with God (I say it over and over).
He's all I've got left.

God's loyal love couldn't have run out,
his merciful love couldn't have dried up.
They're created new every morning.
How great your faithfulness!
I'm sticking with God (I say it over and over).
He's all I've got left.

God proves to be good to the man who passionately waits,
to the woman who diligently seeks.
It's a good thing to quietly hope,
quietly hope for help from God.
It's a good thing when you're young
to stick it out through the hard times.

When life is heavy and hard to take,
go off by yourself. Enter the silence.
Bow in prayer. Don't ask questions:
Wait for hope to appear.
Don't run from trouble. Take it full-face.
The "worst" is never the worst.

Why? Because the Master won't ever
walk out and fail to return.
If he works severely, he also works tenderly.
His stockpiles of loyal love are immense.
He takes no pleasure in making life hard

Lately we've had some hard days emotionally. Not one horrible thing, but a compilation of years of mistakes our children have made that we somehow manage to blame ourselves for, asking how we could have done things differently. It is very difficult to hold on to hope.

But I'm going to do it. It's the only way I can manage. I am going to "keep a grip on hope" and "wait for hope to appear," remembering that God's mercies are "new every morning." The hymn, Great is Thy Faithfulness, that has it's origin in this Scripture, has been a backdrop for most of my life and it remains one.

Hope and faith have to do with seeing beyond now. They have to do with looking forward, not back, with relying on the things we can't see. To possess either hope or faith, we have to let go of the need to know the details, to see the road ahead, but simply to rest in peace knowing that God sees, God knows, and God cares. He can show me as much of the path as I need to see for today, but the rest I can place on HIs shoulders.

Simplistic, probably. True, definitely. Effective if you can manage it, most certainly. I'm keeping my grip on hope.