by Vanessa Smith
No – nothing funny, exciting or headline grabbing has happened in my life of late. In fact, I found myself feeling somewhat uninspired this week. Not depressed – just uninspired…and a tad tired. 😊 I find myself in a place where almost every certainty in my life has changed to uncertain and the horizon seems to “shape-shift” in front of my eyes as often as the changing ocean tides. Anyone else feeling a little like this at present?
Some time ago I saw a picture on social media – with a woman stepping out into thin air – with stairs appearing before her – the quotation being “Step out in faith and God will provide the stairs”. My staircase seems to have had a few wobbly stones and a few seem to lead down before they lead up again – but when I stop to admire the view – stairs there have been!
The combination of this feeling and the title for the Alpha Session 4 this week – “How can I have Faith?” led me into a “deeper dive” of what it means for us to be called to have Faith and to Hope in Christ.
Life happens – and as Christians we are not exempt from “doing life”. We encounter difficulties and hard times – A bereavement; a diagnosis that changes the horizons of the life you imagined; employment that disappears; a marriage that ends… these are examples of times when the future seems very difficult to imagine.
As Christians we turn to prayer and sometimes it seems that prayer is met with silence. We pray for healing, for the repair of a relationship, we use phrases such as “you must have hope/faith “or we urge people to expect restoration or complete healing. We try to provide hope and certainty, where in fact none can be provided.
I turned to a trusted author about hope – According to F. Wessels – Hope is not optimism. Hope should not close the door on lament, grief, forgiveness or even suffering. Grief and anger should not be viewed as obstacles to hope – but may be the places from which honest hope grows. Hope rather allows us to orient ourselves towards meaningful living while the results are still unknown. By way of example – the grieving person may never “get over” the death of a loved one, but they certainly may slowly discover a way of carrying the love forward with them. A marriage may not be restored, yet a person can begin imagining a life not completely focussed around e.g. betrayal. Health may not be restored, but meaningful living may be possible while treatment and further results are expected. Faith and hope provide us with the possibility of living meaningfully within an unfinished story.
Gavriel Marcel to describes hope as fundamentally relational. To quote – “Hope occurs on the level of ‘US’, in communion rather than in isolated self-sufficienty”. This was an AHA moment for me – People do not simply generate hope from within by trying harder – Hope is often created when an opening/a possibility is created, carried and shared with another person/community. A prayer holds open a future that the sufferer cannot yet imagine alone.
Almost unknowingly we have been creating these spaces at St John’s Anglican – I think of our Connect (coffee and activities) group, Music and Memories, Grief Share and Cancer Support groups. These groups allow people to meet with others and say that I don’t know what is going to happen, but I want the present weeks to belong to love and companionship, rather than fear and isolation. Another may say – I don’t know what my future holds yet, but I am willing to keep talking.
Denial and lamentation need space to breathe to become hope. Acts of care by a group of people provide people with hope. Support groups, songs, meals, candles, prayers, memorials, art, testimony – all are practices through which a community says, “This story is not carried alone”.
God is indeed always capable of providing us with hope and a future. The resurrection itself is the ultimate symbol of that openness: The declaration that even where death appears to have completed the sentence, God is still capable of a future tense.
I realize now why our motley crew who meet together for the knitting of squares for blankets, for folding of pew leaflets, for preparing tea – are about the activity – but more importantly they are about connecting with each other as a community and providing faith-filled support for hope to float.
If you, like me, have felt a little uninspired – stop for a moment and realise that by purely “showing up” and being involved with others – you may well be inspiring not only them, but yourself. Take heart, take a breath, exercise faith and hope as you step out onto steps that God provides – one at a time. Climb the next stair of faith into an unwritten chapter of your story.
Let Hope float,
Yours in faith
Vanessa