Defining Hope

2021 has been a rough year. 2020 was bad and perhaps I expected too much of this year and therefore was grossly disappointed. So much has happened to me, to my family, and people I care about and it has been difficult. Finally we ended with the Christmas holiday spent at an emergency room vet losing our fur baby on Christmas day.

Myself and my family are going through the grieving process of the loss as well as some other losses and devastating news that we have received in the past several months. I found this particular devotional very comforting, as the author defined hope, and I’m sharing it here with you. May it bring you some help, some peace, and maybe even an anchor for whatever you may be dealing with today. I’ve never lost sight that God is in control but that doesn’t mean there aren’t days that are hard.

Excerpt from Devotional by Ron Hutchcraft “Hope when your heart is breaking”

I was gasping for emotional oxygen. I was desperate for hope.

Drowning is a pretty fair description of how it feels emotionally when one of life’s sledgehammers hits. In those moments that seem to knock the breath out of us: the death of a loved one, the death of a marriage, the health diagnosis, the prodigal son or daughter, the pink slip, the infertility, the failure.

For most of us, there has been—or there will be—that crushing time when we are desperate for a life preserver. We are drowning.

Hope really is the emotional oxygen that keeps us going.

But hope has to be more than “when you wish upon a star,” or crossing your fingers, or just quoting inspiring slogans from a motivational speaker.

We need something more muscular, more durable, more authentic. There is hope like that. I know. It’s the air I’m breathing right now.

Here is a real-life definition of hope. Of defiant hope:

Hope is a buoyant confidence, acknowledging the hurt, but anchored in an unseen but certain reality.

A hope that is a confidence that squarely faces the loss and the unanswered questions, yet chooses to not be defined by them.

Hope requires choices that defy the seeming hopelessness you may feel.

Night can be so dark. But every sunset in my lifetime has been followed by a sunrise. Without fail.

There is a way to make it through the darkest night.

It’s called defiant hope!