A Four Letter Word

I stumbled across this, as I'm apt to do, but I think that's how it works:

Romans 8:24-25

²⁴ For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what they already have? ²⁵ But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently. (NIV)

Or -

We were given this hope when we were saved. (If we already have something, we don’t need to hope for it. But if we look forward to something we don’t yet have, we must wait patiently and confidently.)(NLV)

I think I like the NLV translation the best but they say the same things, really.  I think though what draws me to the NLV translation is the word confidently.  And, perhaps, that's the word I find myself struggling with right now.  Hope, some days, is all that keeps me going - an idea, no, a belief, that at some point, at some time, my deep abiding desire for more will manifest itself into something felt - spiritually, emotionally, and concretely.  But I don't know, I really don't.  Why does it seem so difficult and dark sometimes? 

To hope confidently... wow, tall order.  Sometimes it's all one can do to keep that tiny little flicker of hope alive - but then, to add confidence to the mix... sheesh, almost like my walking buddy - we clip along our three mile course up an incline most of the way back and for fun she suggests that we now add that fourth mile - the one that goes up two, yes two, very steep hills.  Ugh.  Throw me a flippin' bone here lady... I'm doing the three miles, aren't I?  Talk about kicking a gal when she's down.  But I do it and afterwards feel great... but it takes me talking myself into it to get it accomplished... confidence? 

I think to myself sometimes - is this as good as it gets?  And really, it's not so bad.  Life is predictable and sane, mostly.  There is an ease to the way we live now at Casa de Belle and we've all come a very long way.  And yet... is this it?  I mean really?  Life really isn't a destination, it's a journey, and therefore we don't ever really arrive anyplace, do we?  We move along and pick up travelling companions as we go...  and we, as humans, we're not meant to be alone.  God didn't make us that way and yet, it seems, an awful lot of the time we do end up alone - at least some of us.  And it's not always a choice we make - it is just what it is.

But I go back to the therapist looking at me and saying, "Belle, you're wired to be in relatonship - God made you that way.  And God, havng made you that way, will not leave you unfulfilled."  I don't know.  I just don't know.  God has a plan and God has His own sense of timing.  It always ends up being perfect timing, of course, but it sure doesn't feel that way to us when we're waiting.  And hoping.  It's exhausting though.  I remind myself each morning I am one day closer - to what, I truly don't know - but whatever it is it's one day closer.  God, have mercy on me - help me to wait hopefully, with patience and confidence.  Amen.


G K Chesterton said:

Hope means hoping when things are hopeless or it is no virtue at all...As long as matters are really hopeful, hope is mere flattery or platitude. It is only when everything is hopeless that hope begins to be a strength."