Hope comes with …

Allegory of hope; Oil on canvas, Francesco Guardi, 1747. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Well, it comes, but hope almost never comes with ease. Ease just doesn’t normally foster hope. What is there to hope for when everything’s OK? That everything will be OKer? No, hope comes with adversity. It comes along with hardship and hard times. We all want to hope, but very few, if any, want what goes with it. And this is normal. No one enjoys pain, no one goes looking for problems. OK, some do but that’s because of pre-existing issues. So, be aware, if you desire to have hope you need to be willing to accept the thing God sends that carries the necessity of hope to you. And no, that doesn’t mean you have to like it. But you do need to accept it. Two different things. You don’t need to like bad weather, but it’ll sure make you hope, definitely wish and perhaps pray, for better weather. And as we can’t change the weather we must accept it even when we think it unacceptable.

Hope is the state which promotes the belief in a good outcome related to events and circumstances in one’s life. Despair is often regarded as the opposite of hope. (From Wikipedia.)

Despair. Now there’s a hopeless situation. In despair a person believes, has accepted the lie, that not only are they beyond all human help but beyond Divine help as well. Despair shortens the hand of an All-Powerful God. Despair is sin, and can take one to that unforgivable sin.The unpardonable sin is the one not repented of. God can’t forgive what we won’t confess. Why would someone caught up in despair believe God could or would forgive them anything if they’re beyond help, beyond His reach?

The point? Don’t indulge in despair, it leads you nowhere but beyond God’s reach, not because His reach is limited but because we refuse His hand. How? Well, one way to refuse God’s hand is to refuse to hope. The best way to refuse hope and to accept despair is to get caught up in the problem without realizing that the problem is a gift bringing to us yet another gift. And that gift is hope.

Romans 5:5
And hope confoundeth not: because the charity of God is poured forth in our hearts, by the Holy Ghost, who is given to us.

I wanted to say this, to share it, because I know from personal experience how beautiful hope can be. And if all I ever accomplish is to help someone see that hardship can be a gift and the portal to Hope in Christ I’ll die happy. 🙂

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A friend of yours may be bored to tears right now … Tuesday, April 16

A Guardian Angel. We all have one. They are gifts and helpers from God.

A Rosary Meditation … The First Sorrowful Mystery, the Agony in the Garden. “And there appeared to him an angel from heaven to strengthen him.” Luke 22:43. Sometimes, depending, I suppose, upon the severity of the subject matter, prayer can be a real agony. It can also be a mental chore that’s about as tiresome as a full day in the gym. Prayer can be something all to willingly put off because there are so many more “important” things to do. Shame is something else that can, and often does, stand between us and prayer. We are human, easily distracted and weak. But anything that stands between us and prayer by extension stands between us and God. Ah, now all of a sudden it’s getting serious. It was before, but serious, like lots of things, can be hard to spot in the push and pull of living. There is something we can do about it all, the answer being rather obvious. Things hidden in plain sight are often the hardest for us to spot. (Now would be a good time to read a wonderful short story by Edgar Allen Poe, in literature the very first real detective story and the “father” of that genre, called “The Purloined Letter“. It explains hidden in plain view very well.)  The obvious thing to do when prayer is hard? Pray. Sounds circular, doesn’t it? But there is a little trick here. Jesus, in the garden, was having an awful time with prayer. He sweat blood and we can figure that’s about as bad as it can get. What happened? An angel from Heaven came to His aid. We all have a guardian angel. Matthew 18:10. Angels are doers. They serve God, they carry messages, the fight battles against darkness and the demons that reside there, they do lots of things, and they watch over us. Do you think that your guardian angel, being a doer and used to staying active, enjoys standing there twiddling his thumbs, bored to tears, while you’ve got a problem that he could help with … IF you’d just ask? (Believe me, if ANYBODY needs to read this post and take it to heart its ME.) So when there’s a problem with prayer, or anything else, ask for some help. We’ve all got a Heavenly Helper standing right there next to us. Tired of twiddling his thumbs.

Today … St. Bernadette Soubirous. The young lady who saw our Mother at Lourdes. She was ridiculed, threatened by the government authorities, ostracized. No one believed her. And then a spring appeared. Now everyone, everyone with faith, believes her. And Lourdes stand out as a place of healing, healings of body, mind, and soul. In all of her troubles, before people came to believe, do you think Bernadette ever agonized in prayer? Do you think she received any help? And what do you think of the outcome?

Consider … The Blessed Virgin promised Bernadette happiness in the next world but not this one. With this in mind, here’s one last question: Were Bernadette’s prayers REALLY answered?