Rediscovering Hope

“We’ve domesticated despair and learned to live with it.” – Flannery O’Conner

The other day I met with a friend. As we chatted over lunch, she asked me, “How are you doing these days?” 

I knew my face was lighting up as I shared with her that I am in a season of life where I am feeling some pretty profound joy. There are a number of reasons why this is the case. No, not everything is perfect. I’ve been struggling with a leg injury and winter is just hard some days. Going down to part-time work to pursue a dream brings some financial uncertainty.

What’s with all the joy, then? I wondered. 

I think this little phrase by Flannery O’Conner summarizes it. For the past two weeks, as I’ve wrestled with how to adequately communicate what it feels like to finally emerge from a prolonged pain in my soul, I have come up with something so basic that I have simply overlooked it. It’s this: Rediscovering hope.

I’ve written before on how “hope deferred makes the heart sick.” I’ve listened over and over to people who are seriously wrestling with the church. I’ve heard church leaders say you have to be in church or you are not truly part of the Body of Christ. I’ve heard pastor friends tell me that to not commit to a local church body is to not understand scripture. I’ve argued for the presence of God in all parts of life. 

But more so, I’ve had time to just sit and pray, to yell and cry, to ask the hard questions of why so many of us long for right and good and yet don’t seem to find it.

“We’ve domesticated despair and learned to live with it.” This statement may be one of the saddest I’ve read. 

For over two years I sat in despair. If a word picture were to emerge, it would be that of unknowingly sitting in sackcloth and ashes as I mourn the state of too many of our churches. Unbeknownst to me, I had resigned myself to despair—thrown my hands up in surrender as my strength failed me. This occurred very slowly—so slowly that before I knew it, something was dramatically different.

And then something happened. I realized that my wounds had changed me, and not for the better. I had sunk deeper in the mire than I cared to admit and could no longer stay there.

I told my husband that I couldn’t do any of this anymore. I had to go part time to write my book. I had to leave the church we were attending. I had to pursue faith and press into the unknown. 

How many of us, in our most honest moments, admit that we’ve lost faith? Not the big “F” Faith, but the little faiths that make up all the little pieces. We’ve lost faith that someone will actually want to hear we are hurting. We’ve lost faith that anyone will offer to walk with us in our pain. We’ve lost faith that our church leaders will seek humility and suffering. We’ve lost faith that the church in America matters at all. We’ve lost faith that we matter at all.

As I’ve stepped away from so much over the past few months, I’ve found something so critical as to be one with the very air we breathe: hope. Hope that we matter, that our churches matter, that our pain and our struggles matter. Nehemiah 8:10 reminds us, “Do not grieve, for the joy of the Lord is your strength.” Jesus says, “Do not fear. I have overcome the world.” 

All will not be well all of the time. This will only happen in heaven when at last our despair will be wiped away forever. And yet even here on earth despair never has the final word as long as our eyes are fixed on Jesus. Hope can prevail even today. Hope, in the person of Jesus, always wins.

Have you domesticated despair? Have you become so used to your wounds that it has changed how you live and how you see the world? My hunch is that if I did it, others are doing it as well. 

Here’s the thing with pain related to the church—it’s the worst kind of pain. When the safest place become our enemy, when our comfort is replaced with mourning, when our joy is masked with tears, then there is only one way forward—to pursue faith so heartily that the only thing left to domesticate is hope.

How does this happen? 

First, take a long, hard look at yourself. Check your emotions. What prevails, what dominates? Has this changed for the better, for the worse?

Second, seek to be like David. Pour out your heart to God, over and over, and let him speak hope into you.

Third, lean into faith. Are there ways you can begin to trust again? Is there one person you can talk to or confide in? If there isn’t, reach out to me. I’ll be that person for you.

Finally, don’t give up. The road back to joy is long and winding. But one day you will find it, perhaps, like me, when you had thought it would never return.

“Why are you in despair, O my soul? And why have you become disturbed within me? Hope in God, for I shall again praise Him for the help of His presence.” – Psalm 42:5

Much love, friends, 

Laurie