“True hope dwells on the possible, even when
life seems to be a plot written by someone who wants to see how much adversity
we can overcome. True hope responds to the real world, to real life; it is an
active effort.”
— Walter Anderson
Struggling souls depend on hope
for revival. That hope is awakened by faith-held action—to go on in the
hopeless, helpless moment, beyond the negative pale, redeeming the positive.
To be sung in the first person, here
is a poem, for you, if your mood descends to the blue:
Swimming against
the tide of abandonment, I remind myself of divine enchantment. (For, I am won
to the Saviour who descended for me.)
Tumbling
in the mix of desolating confusion, I remind myself of the Presence of No
Illusion. (God, no less.)
Flattened
by the reticence of goals, I remind myself of the Resurrector of souls. (We are
raised by request, yet again, by the Son.)
Numbed at
the gapingly vacant soul-mood, there is cherished remembrance of nourishing divine
food. (Jesus is the Bread of Life.)
When We Feel Abandoned
Rejection is the lowest form of
emotion we can experience, for it has trusted in love and unfaithfulness has
failed it.
When we feel abandoned we ought to
remember the Son scooped and won us. Abandonment has no victory over the soul
revived, afresh, by the Holy Spirit.
When We Feel Confused
Chaotic thinking and anxiety
abounding, there are times like these where our hearts cannot make sense of our
heads.
When we feel confused we ought to
remember the Foundation—that Presence of No Illusion is there, in our midst,
calming the flailing mind, urging us to take self-respite. The busied mind must
take its space.
When We Feel Like A Failure
Whilst the goal of life is to hit
the target, whatever that is, we frequently miss. Hope tells us that failure
cannot ever define us, unless by choice; to succumb to the inaction of fear
when going on in action—the opposite of how we feel—would be the right and
better thing to do.
When we feel like a failure we
ought to remember there is a Resurrector of souls we call upon in moments like
these—to lift us into modes of learning-despite-humiliation and into that
raised state of trying again.
When We Feel Empty And Numb
Numbness is possibly the most
hopeless of states; yet, it, of itself, is not beyond hope.
When we feel empty and numb we
ought to remember to be gentle with ourselves; to go to the divine feeding
trough, to the Bread of Life, and eat for rest.
***
Whether we feel abandoned,
confused, like a failure, or empty and numb, sweet revival of the soul is but
the vision of hope away. Hope believes because it can, especially when all of
life is against it. Hope remembers the vision far off and feels the Presence of
God near.
© 2013 S. J. Wickham.
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