In this blog party, we are concentrating together on what hope is and how it has the power to change everything. I've mentioned that I'm reading a book called “Relentless Hope" by a woman named Beth Guckenberger. What I haven't yet mentioned is that I accidentally came upon this book. I'm not sure how I ended up with it exactly but it was with a stack of my books and because I'm writing and studying and preparing to teach on the theme of hope, I decided to pull this one out and read it. I'm so glad I did!
It may have been an accident to me, but it was no accident that I got my hands on this book and that I am reading it now. The stories the author shares are some of the most powerful and painfully real ones that I've ever read on the printed page. And they are also full of hope. These stories are making a huge impact on me as I read Beth's words and receive God's message through it. Messages I need to hear.
At one point in the book Beth describes a hurricane that impacted her city where she lives in Mexico. Listen to what she has to say about this experience:
“Hurricane Alex pummeled my Third World city of Monterrey, Mexico, this week with almost 40 inches of rain in as many hours. The city has widespread damage and devastation. Our little ministry campus felt under assault while the rain relentlessly demanded to go where it wanted.
I was outside, in the thick of the storm, bailing out buckets of rain water alongside a motley crew of visiting guests, longtime staff friends, and some of the orphan teens that live with us. In the middle of it all, I stopped and realized what should have been crushing was actually joyful. We were fearful for our homes and mentally calculating the cost of damage as it was happening, but we were all in this together and were building a certain intimacy as we ganged up together against the storm.
It was in that moment, with dozens of us standing together protecting the property and each other, wearing ponchos that had long since seemed useless, and sleep deprived to the point of being slap-happy, that I realized all over again the truth of Jeremiah's words.* There is nothing worthless, not even a hurricane, that God can't bring something useful or precious out of. I could choose to look at the rain, and the mud, and focus on the worthless, or I could look at the deepening connection with friends and the fragile outreach to my neighbors and see the precious.
I hit a turning point around inch 20, when I realized I was wasting far too much time wondering Why doesn't he stop it? Instead I could've been marveling at a God who allows all of creation the free will to live the life of our own choosing and yet still reaches down and redeems, repairs, restores….
I'm promising myself to fix on the precious when it's tempting to look down at the septic water in my kitchen. It feels like exercising a muscle and I have a choice to learn to pick up what feels heavy and watch it strengthened, or let the heavy things in my life pin me down.
It's more than looking on the bright side of things-which somehow implies that when we grieve the loss or a sin, we are living on the dark side. Extracting the precious isn't about dark or light, it's not about mood or personality, it's about wisdom. It's not an attempt to brush over what is hard or painful, it's an exercise in finding perspective, context, hope."
*From Jeremiah 15: “If you return, then I will restore you-before me you will stand; and if you extract the precious from the worthless, you will become my spokesman…. for I am with you to save you and deliver you, declares the Lord.”
So as we consider the gift of hope together, and how hope changes everything, what might happen if beginning right now we all decided to extract the precious from the worthless and share what we find with those around us?
