Tag: hope

Hope

I hope the first day of 2024 treated you well. Mine was productive…I was awake at 5, so I got up and went for a run before spending the rest of the morning in the garden, mowing, weeding, and landscaping. It feels good to be at the end of the first day of a new year and be able to point at what I’ve already achieved.

Many are less fortunate than me. From people who lost their homes and loved ones in floods in my home province last night, to the devastating earthquake in Japan just a few hours ago, 2024 is already shaping up to be a rotten year for some.

And yet…

As I reflected on the past year and looked ahead to the new one during the past couple of weeks, a word kept surfacing in my thoughts:

Hope

The Oxford Dictionary defines ‘hope’ as, ‘a feeling of expectation and desire for a particular thing to happen,’ and, ‘a feeling of trust.’ It’s about feelings and desires. Basically, a wish. But that’s not the word that had anchored itself in my mind. The word I gradually become obsessed with is infinitely bigger than my wants.

Pondering this while pulling out weeds this morning I was reminded of the well-known passage in Jeremiah 29:11: ‘“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.‘

This is a passage that is often quoted out of context, so it’s important to fill in the blanks here. Jeremiah speaks this prophecy to the Israelites who’d been carried away in captivity by the Babylonians. They’ve lost everything, they’re in a strange country, and they feel their God has abandoned them. Looking at the state of the world at the moment, I can begin to imagine what they’re feeling.

God tells them to have hope, he will keep his promises, he will answer when they call. In the Bible, hope is the confident expectation of what God has promised. It’s not based in our feelings, but in God’s faithfulness.

Over the weekend, scrolling through my Facebook feed, I spotted part of the headline to an opinion piece on a news site I follow, Hope is a verb… Given my recent obsession with the word I took note of it, and thought it an interesting idea, but I didn’t click through to read it. Earlier today I went looking for it.

The article is very focused on the South African political landscape, but one part stood out:

“…hope is not a passive or evasive state but an active one. Hope is a state of doing. People draw hope from seeing others do things and make sacrifices for other people, and who therefore must still have hope themselves.”
Mark Heywood

In Jeremiah 29 the Israelites are anxious to go home, having been promised this by “prophets” among them. Through Jeremiah, God tells them to get comfortable in their new home, as they’re going to be there a while. But not as victims and outcasts, cynical and bitter about their lot. No, he tells them to show up and participate, to be good citizens and to pray for their new country as if it’s their own. And only then comes the promise in verse 11 and onward.

Hope is a verb. It’s not wishing. It’s doing. It’s showing up. It’s living in expectation of the change you want to see, and being part of that change. It doesn’t deny that bad stuff happens (that’s the wishing kind of hope), but it chooses to take action and do what you’re able to do to make things better, no matter how small.

That’s the word that’s been slowly invading my thoughts, that’s gradually changing my perspective, that’s making me want to do more, to have a bigger impact this year. To be a blessing because I’ve been blessed with much.

Instead of resolutions this year, I’m doing hope.

So I wish you a hope-filled 2024.

A letter to my daughter on her first day on Earth

My dearest Elizabeth,

Today is your first day on Earth. Today you breathed air for the first time, and moments later I got to hear your first scream. I held you in my arms when you first opened your eyes, and for the first time you fell asleep in my arms.

I wish I could keep you like this always, safe in my arms and sheltered from all the ugliness in the world, but I can’t. You will grow up, much sooner than I want you to, and come face to face with the hurts of this world.

Your mother and I did you a disservice in a way, bringing you into this world, as it is a crazy and terrible place. It’s a world where people believe it’s okay to hate others just because they look, think or believe differently than you. It’s a world where people put themselves first, without a thought of how their actions might hurt those around them. It’s a world where greed and dishonesty is rewarded and integrity only brings you trouble.

It’s a world in which you will be hurt, and as much as I want to protect you from it, I know I’ll never be able to. I’m just not strong enough.

I might even cause more than a little share of the hurt you will experience in your life.

And for that I apologise.

But I want you to know two things of which you can be certain:

First, I love you. I love you more than I have words to describe. I only met you a few hours ago but I already know that I can never stop loving you, even if I tried. I can’t protect you from this world, but I will do everything in my power to try and do it anyway, because I’m your father and that’s what dads do (the good ones, anyway, and I really hope I’m one of those).

And second, this world is an incredible place. I know, I know. A moment ago I called it…I think my exact words were “crazy and terrible”. But at the same time it’s also filled with beauty and wonder.

You were born on a Tuesday. We drove to hospital in the early morning hours with a full moon overhead, and the sun shone brightly in a clear blue sky all day long. A couple weeks ago I spent an hour watching two eagles circle over our home. It has mountains and forests and deserts, and I can’t wait to introduce you to the sea.

On the day you were born someone stood for what they believe in, sacrificed for the sake of others, spoke out against injustice, followed their dreams.

A wise man once named the three greatest virtues: Faith, Hope and Love. If you cultivate these in your life and let them shape the way you view the world, it will never beat you down. Not for good, anyway – you’ll always be able, and more importantly, find a reason to get back up.

I only hope you can see these virtues in my life in the brief moment in time we have together.

I feel like I should end with some profound advice, but I’m pretty sure in the coming year you are going to prove that everything I thought I knew is complete poppycock, so let’s leave advice until next year. (Assuming you’re not the one giving me advice by then.)

Love, Dad

So long, 2015

I started 2015 unemployed and in bed with a fever, and mused that things could only get better. That turned out to be somewhat prophetic, though I missed the bit about things first getting worse.

But things getting worse was probably the best thing that could have happened, because it convinced me to give up.

I will remember 2015 as the year I gave up. I gave up on further academic studies. I gave up on a career and a dream. I gave up on what I believed (and to come degree still believe) to be my calling and in the process gave up a significant part of myself.

Conventional wisdom says winners never quit. I say conventional wisdom is an idiot. A well-intentioned idiot, but an idiot nonetheless.

For quitting freed me up to try something new. And it has paid off beyond my wildest dreams.

With little more than an hour left before I bid 2015 farewell, I look back and have to say that this was a great year. As awful as it started, and as discouraging as the first two thirds were, the final four months have surpassed my wildest imaginings.

As I told my colleagues when I wished them a happy New Year earlier, for the first time in many years I’m excited about the new year. Between my new job and the new adventure of fatherhood lying ahead, I can’t wait to see what 2016 will hold.

Happy New Year. I’ve a feeling it’s going to be a good one.

On choosing me

My sister and I were very much church brats growing up. We weren’t pastor’s kids, but my first ever friend (and, for a few weeks in the fourth grade, fiancée) was. My father was head of the Sunday School (by second grade it was my job after church to run across to the school whose premises we used for Sunday School and unlock the classes before the others arrived) and organised all the church youth camps while my mother cooked for them. My first bee sting was at one of those camps.

The second Wednesday of each month was spent playing on the church office floor while my mother received the offerings collected by the deacons during home visits the previous week. Sunday mornings I sat with my dad among the elders, and my sister sat with my mum in the choir gallery.

This is going somewhere, promise…

Howdy, 2014

This morning as we enjoyed our first cuppa of the new year, I noticed the wife’s a bit teary.

“What’s the matter?” says I.

She responds, “I’ve just managed to finish one year, and now I have to do another one!”

One doesn’t think of it like that, does one? Once the partying is done and the hangover has subsided, there’s another whole three-hundred and sixty-four days lying ahead in which to push and fight and grin and bear it and fail and get knocked down until you no longer want to get up.

It’s enough to bring one to tears. But there’s also another whole three-hundred and sixty-four days lying ahead in which to be kind and show compassion and take risks and have adventures and tell stories and make art and laugh and love and learn. Another year in which to give hugs and hold hands and make friends and be amazed at the wonder of this universe in which we live.

That’s the year I’m wishing for you all. May 2014 take you on the wildest ride of your life and leave you completely changed come its end and may you look back three-hundred and sixty-five days from today and say, “Damn! I wish I could go again.”

Happy New Year!

P.S. We’re headed to the in-laws (again) tomorrow (apparently they have another snoek needs cooking), and I’m foreseeing another lack of internet over there, so if I don’t respond to comments, please don’t take it personally. The first book review of 2014 will still go up on Friday and I’ll be back by Monday for the year’s very first Song Title Challenge.