Near the beginning of this year (2014) it occurred to me, I was not very good at “Hope-ing”. It’s not that I never used the word hope. I regularly hoped others would have good day, a good night’s sleep, successful interviews, heal and the like. And that wishful thought of hope was a very true one from my heart. However, when it came to me? To my future? To my hopes for life? There was a disconnect.
Call it what you will. BrenĂ© Brown (who assuredly is one of my best friends in another life) would say I was “foreboding joy”: the idea that “Well if I really don’t believe my hopes would happen or share my dreams, then I won’t be disappointed when it doesn’t workout”. But all of our hearts deeply know that isn’t true – we would still be devastated if we didn’t land that job, meet that special someone, experience the gift of parenting, etc. The only difference? No one’s there to understand the depth of your hurt when the other shoe drops. Thinking I’d be keeping myself from hurting deeply when actually I was robbing myself of the joy of hope in life.
And so I lived and I prayed. I hoped for things, I believed firmly in God, but didn’t let myself believe these hopes could actually happen. More pointedly, I feared they would not happen. One day I realized it, I was aware, aware of that fear, that lack of belief behind my hopes. Awareness is always the first step to potential change.
Here I am almost a year later, and it now occurs to me – it’s not that I don’t hope in that beautiful future being a possibility, it’s that I’m trying to hope in my own abilities to make that future happen. I was hoping in something that would be impossible because my future hopes, my next five minutes for that matter are unpredictable, not promised, and out of my control as much as yours are.
You might be thinking, that’s not comforting. But wait…To realize that I don’t have to manage this future, these hopes, these dreams, or what will happen in the next five minutes is freeing. You see, I was afraid, because I thought I had to be God. No wonder I was afraid! That’s a huge job! I thought the weight was on me. I need to make everything happen, much of which has many elements out of my control. It would be impossible AND nerve wracking if that were the case!
When you realize that you are incapable of making your dreams happen, you can find the One who is capable. God is able to accomplish infinitely more than we could EVER ask or imagine. Do you see the joy and the Hope in that?! More than your and my dreams is possible! When we realize we don’t have to force a future (or in BrenĂ© speak “hussle for it”) we can accept a future much bigger, grander, more valuable, promising, and filled with purpose, meaning and beauty than the one we could ever create.
Let us Hope in the Capable One.
