When it feels like hope has flown
“‘Hope’ is the thing with feathers,” writes Emily Dickinson in a popular poem. Hope carries us above a sense of trouble or burden. But sometimes it can feel as though we’ve been left in the lurch or grounded by the storms of life.
The book of Jeremiah records God as telling the Israelites that have been carried away captive to Babylon, “I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope” (29:11, New King James Version). God, infinite good, doesn’t give us troubles to overcome through arduous effort. Instead, through the light-giving Christ message, the spiritual idea of who we are as Her spiritual children, our divine Father-Mother opens our eyes to the blessings we already have.
In the archives of The Christian Science Publishing Society are many accounts of people finding hope where it was least expected, and learning that their expectation could be planted in an ever-deepening sense of the power and love of God. Here are a few of these accounts.
Our great value as God’s blessed children never changes. Glimpsing this fact gives us the hope of a bright way forward, as a teen experienced in “Healed of hopelessness.”
When there’s a darkness we just can’t seem to shake, diving into the Christian Science textbook, “Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures” by Mary Baker Eddy, wakes us up to the divine light that is all around us, the author of “Out of helplessness into hope” found.
Like flowers that have been pressed down by the elements yet blossom nonetheless, we too can be enlivened, the author of “From a mental abyss to a new life” writes – because we never actually lose our God-given identity and purpose.
“Anchoring our hope in God” considers how we don’t have to resort to wishful thinking when harmony seems so distant. Looking for hope in a spiritual sense of existence, we find durable ideas to lean on, ideas that lead to healing.
Entirely independent of our human circumstances, whether good or bad, the hope that comes from God is spiritual, substantial, and peace-giving, and it guides us forward to a strengthening spiritual understanding, the writer of “There is hope” shares.
The writer of “When the unexpected happened” experienced a blooming of hope that led her forward during a challenging time when she realized we don’t have to earn the goodness and love of God. It is freely imparted to us.
