A Brave Hope blog by Pink Salt Riot

We talked last week about the wounds from human relationships that can make it hard to hope in God.

This week I want to talk about the radical bravery, the audacity, that it takes to hope in God. 

Something that so many in our culture would view as weakness, is actually an incredible sign of strength. Being able to embrace hope in Christ when all seems to be darkness is one of the most courageous things that we can do on a daily basis. 

It’s the kind of courage that draws us into the heart of God – the kind of bravery that God loves. As Paul says in Romans 5:5, hope will not disappoint us. All the people who hope in God will see their hopes fulfilled, whether here or in heaven. 

I have a great privilege of designing a bundle for Mother’s Day specifically created to give to those women who have lost their mothers. (All our Mother's Day goodies came out last week and you can shop them right here.)  This was something I took very seriously and I spent a long time talking to women who have lost their mothers about what it was that would be helpful to say, knowing that nothing would ever take away even a little bit of the pain of a mother no longer with us on earth, but something that could, in the midst of the pain, point towards hope. The two pieces I created feature the words “Earth has no sorrow that heaven can’t heal.” and “United with heaven in prayer.”

I think a vital aspect of keeping hope alive in our hearts is a concerted belief that this is not all there is. Everything might not look fine here, ever. People reach the end of their lives in all kinds of states of illness, injustice, and violence. But we can maintain hope in the face of this because we believe that our hope is not for this world alone, but this world and the next. 

If everything is not made right here, which it typically is not, that is not the end of the story. It is a brave thing to hope in the face of death, and we can only do it because our Lord showed us how through his own death and resurrection. He invites us into that story, into the hope that that story will also be our own story when all is said and done.

With joy!

Jill