Two lovely quotes:
"There is certainly nothing wrong with seeing God as savior; it is just that God is and wants to be so much more than that...
"Although the holy One continues to be deliverer and sustainer, love calls us beyond using God to satisfy our needs, to heal us, to get us out of trouble, or to enhance our efficiency. Love calls us to gratitude, to relinquishment, celebration, service, play, praise, companionship, intimacy, communion, and always to deeper yearning. In other words, love calls us to love."
- Gerald G. May, The Awakened Heart, Chapter 4: The Consecration of Hope.
Then I read this (the emphasis is mine):
"By contrast, there is no such thing as false hope. Hope deepens our love precisely because because it does not have to be bound by experience. A child who has always gone hungry cannot expect the next meal to be full but surely and rightly can hope. Because hope always admits its uncertainty, it can be disappointed but never killed. It is always open-ended."
-Gerald G. May, The Awakened Heart, Chapter 4: The Consecration of Hope.
I read and reread those lines, and as I did, I remembered that hope is included in the three greatest things: faith, hope and love.
For the first time, I caught a glimpse of the reason why.
I always thought of hope as a wishy-washy feeling, like water color paints, ready at any time to be washed away and diluted into nothing.
Now I can grasp how its very open-endedness is what lends hope its value, its incredible strength in the face of death, defeat and loss.
Hope can and will be dashed, but by its nature and against all odds, it will wing up again.
