Little Wren Writes

I’ve needed hope more this year than I ever have before.

Not the kind of hope that says, “I hope it doesn’t rain tomorrow.” Or, “I hope things get easier soon.”

That’s not really hope – that’s wishing.

The Bible means something much deeper when it talks about hope. It isn’t wishful thinking. It isn’t optimism. It isn’t pretending everything will be okay.

I wonder whether we could say that biblical hope is a settled confidence. Not confidence that tomorrow will unfold the way I’d planned. Confidence that whatever tomorrow holds, God will still be God.

If I’m honest that can be a hard truth to swallow. If my hope rests in circumstances, then every disappointment has the power to destroy it. If my hope rests in outcomes, then unanswered prayers become terrifying. If my hope rests in people, then people leaving can take it away.

But if my hope ultimately rests in the unchanging character of God…well even when my world shakes, something deeper remains.

Now. This doesn’t mean hurt becomes easier. Hurt is real. It leaves scars. It changes us – sometimes in small ways and sometimes in significant ways. From the way we answer the phone to the way we make plans. From the way we trust people, the way we walk into church or to the way we pray.

If we’re not careful, hurt even changes the way we imagine God! It quietly whispers,

“See? He wasn’t really listening.”
“He won’t come through this time either.”
“Don’t expect too much.”
“Just fix it yourself.”

Satan, who is often referred to as the ‘great deceiver’, loves to whisper those in my ear – I hear them often and they are a slippery slope to trying to find hope in myself or in other fleeting things. Maybe you have heard them too. They can be so easy to believe in the moment but they never last. There is no ‘ultimate hope’ in stuff, in people, in alcohol…you fill in the thing for you.

Hurt also bends my gaze. It pulls my eyes downwards. Towards what I’ve lost. Towards what might happen next. Towards every reason to protect myself from being hurt again. In fact, over the last few weeks, every time I found myself starting to spiral into hopelessness, my gaze would literally be downwards. I only discovered this because a dear friend, who I’ve spent a significant amount of time with (she has gotten very good at reading me and my body language in this season of suffering), would nudge me and remind me ‘eyes up!’ Sometimes she would even have to gently grab my chin to physically lift my gaze because I was so quick to become lost in the hurt and unable to pull myself out – she would have to change my posture to help me snap out of the spiral of hurt.

In fact, in those moments, I think pain tries to become the loudest voice in the room. Not because it’s the only voice. But because it’s the one that ‘hurts’ the most. If I stare at my pain long enough, it slowly begins to convince me that it is the whole story. That these feelings of hurt – and whatever (or whoever!) has caused it – is all consuming. It’s ‘who I am now’ or it’s ‘the end of the story’.

Hope doesn’t ask me to ignore my hurt. It simply lifts my eyes again – a bit like my friend. She’s not forcing me to ignore the hurt or run away from the hurt. She’s helping lift my gaze – not away from reality but towards a bigger reality: towards a God who has not changed, even though everything else seems to have.

I love that Jesus never minimised hurt.

He never told grieving people to “look on the bright side.”
He never rushed tears.
He never treated pain as an inconvenience or something to fix as quickly as possible.

He stood outside the tomb of His friend Lazarus and wept.
He sat beside the broken.
He touched wounded bodies.
He carried sorrow.
He entered our suffering instead of standing at a safe distance from it.

And when He rose again…He still had scars.

What a remarkable thought.
The resurrection didn’t erase the wounds. It redeemed them. Thomas was invited to touch them. The scars remained, but they no longer spoke of defeat. They spoke of love.

Perhaps that’s true of our wounds too.

Could it be that healing is discovering that our deepest hurts no longer have the authority to define us? We don’t have to pretend we were never hurting or ignore our hurt. Instead, these hurts become places where God’s grace can (and maybe already has) quietly met us.

Not all at once. Slowly. Over years. Trying to remind us that hope doesn’t deny the existence of scars. Hope simply refuses to believe that scars are the end of the story.

Paul writes,

“May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him…”

I love that he calls Him the God of hope.
Not the God who occasionally gives hope.
The God of hope.

Hope belongs to His very character! It flows out of who He is. Which means my hope isn’t built on my ability to stay positive. It’s built on God’s inability to stop being faithful. That’s a foundation strong enough to build a life on.

Let’s consider the resurrection for a moment…if Jesus really walked out of that tomb – and I believe with all my heart that He did – then hope isn’t just a comforting idea Christians cling to. It’s reality. It’s the declaration that sin does not have the final word.

Death does not have the final word.
Evil does not have the final word.
Grief does not have the final word.
The hardest chapters of our lives do not have the final word.

Jesus does.

Every other ending has become a temporary one. That doesn’t make today’s hurt any less real. But it changes the way I read today’s chapter. I may not understand this page. I may not even like this page.

But I know the Author. And I trust Him.

That doesn’t mean I always feel hopeful. Some days I don’t. Some days my prayers are little more than, “Jesus…I can’t.”

Some days hope feels no bigger than a mustard seed. But I need to stop being ashamed of those days, because Jesus said mustard seeds were enough.

One of my new favourite images in Scripture comes from Hebrews.

“We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure.”

I’m not into boats – at all…good luck ever getting me on one. The image of an anchor as hope, however, is beautiful!

Anchors don’t stop storms. They don’t calm the waves. They don’t make the wind disappear. They simply stop the boat from drifting somewhere it was never meant to go. That’s what hope has done for me. It hasn’t stopped the storms. It hasn’t answered every question. It hasn’t taken away every fear. But it has stopped me drifting. It has kept bringing me back to Jesus.

Again.

And again.

And again.

Yes, there are days when my grip feels incredibly weak. Days when I wonder if I’m holding onto God tightly enough…

But I need to remember that the strength of an anchor has never depended on the grip of the person holding the rope – it depends on what the anchor is buried in.

My hope is not secure because I hold onto God perfectly. My hope is secure because He has never let go of me.

So I guess, for me, hope doesn’t look like certainty. It doesn’t look like having all the answers. It doesn’t even look like feeling particularly brave.

Most days it looks wonderfully ordinary. Making another cup of tea. Answering another message. Walking into church. Praying one honest prayer. Laughing with a friend. Taking the next faithful step.

Not because life is easy. But because the God of hope is still the God of hope.

And that is enough for today.

“May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.” 
Romans 15:13