Marinating since December 12th 2024
Hope, what a joyous thing…unless your hope is “deferred,” then it just makes your heart terribly sick. Which then creates a rote response to hope in the heart of a man, and that response is to not hope. You see a glimmer of hope, and you run the other direction.
Someone told me earlier this year that this was the year of the open doors…well now that I am at the end of this year I would say quite the opposite, this has been the year of closed doors – right in the face, leaving a bleeding nose and a broken heart. All my hopes, all the doors I’ve tried to walk through seem to have been slammed in my face, leaving me quite bewildered some times, and quite depressed most times, not to mention the bleeding nose, again!
Coming upon a closed door, there arises in me a subconscious question once again, “Should I hope again, or shall I not?”
I was reading/listening to the book recently that had a quote from Betsy Childs Howard that went like so;
“It’s much easier to stop hoping than to have your dream deferred
again
and again.”
Oh, how true has that been proved to me this year. Perhaps, the best thing to do is to just stop hoping in the first place, then it can’t get deferred, and then my heart can’t get sick, right? (Spoiler alert; your heart gets even more sick when no hope is present)
A certain liturgy has been of great en-courage-ment and hope to me, even in hopelessness it brings hope, and even defines true hope, as opposed to misplaced hope. I just read this liturgy and that is what inspired me to write this document. I do not have the right to directly quote the liturgy here but I shall still let you in on my ponderings cerca de este; Every Moment Holy Vol. I, The Death of a Dream (page 233 in pocket edition).
Buy the book, buy the liturgy single, download the app, read it yourself. Or, just ponder with me third hand.
This liturgy speaks directly to the pain and hurt that occurs when dreams die. We feel betrayed and abandoned. All looks hopeless and bleak. The liturgy sees us right where we are at, it sits in the pain with us, but it does not draw our attention to the pain, as though forever looking at it will heal the wound. Over and over again this liturgy reminds us that there is something greater, there is a hope that makes all other hope pale in comparison, there is a hope that is not able to be broken, and until our hearts hope in that hope, all other hopes should be shaken and shattered.
Do I want to build my life on brittle hopes only to find in the end that they could never bear up anyway? Or is it better to have those false hopes exposed, no matter the hurt and pain it causes me right now? Of course the best thing is to have them shaken and shattered right now and not later, after more life has been built upon them. That is easy to say; but to have those hopes shattered at anytime is not an easy thing, with great pain will that price be paid, but I think it is worth it.
Seek the true hope, fellow Ponderer, don’t give up on that which is eternal just because that which is temporal has clouded the view.
“Don’t doubt in the dark what God has shown you in the light.” -a man after God’s heart.
To hope is better than to not hope.
And while the price is high to hope, it is more than worth it in the end. So do not give up before the end. Even when you have no strength to move, just don’t give up. Even when paralyzed, without the ability to function, don’t give up.
Remind your heart
again
and again
where true hope lies, and let the false hopes fall away.
The Ponderings of
Jack Bones
English