Last year, for the first time, I heard about the One Word Project, in which people are encouraged to pick one word to focus on for the entire year, rather than simply making New Year's Resolutions. This discovery was rather serendipitous as I happened to find myself focusing on a word as the new year began, and it was certainly one that held great meaning for me throughout 2015. The word was hope.
In 2015 I learned to be flexible on with my schedule, recognized how characteristics I'd never thought of as weaknesses could negatively affect me on rotations, and even improved some relationships and character traits that have been issues in the past, but at the end of the year I wasn't sure how much I'd succeeded when it came to learning about and growing in hope. I still think I'm a hopeful person, but I recognize that some days I have to fight for hope. Some days hope is just a tiny candle, flickering in a dark void, and that flame has to be protected and encouraged. Sometimes hope isn't even something you can hold and protect, but is the faintest light off in the distance that you know exists, but cannot see clearly, if at all. Sometimes it's a fight simply to create hope in the first place. The book of Romans talks about the creation of hope, and, much as I hate to acknowledge it, hope can have its origins in suffering. Paul says, "...we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us" (Rom. 5:3-5). I'm still not sure if the difficult days of 2015 have yet produced endurance in me (let alone character or hope), and I don't think I have all the answers to my questions about hope and what I can hope for. Instead, I find myself living in the tension, admitting that, for right now the answers are hidden and I must proceed with just enough guidance for each individual step, trying to breathe out fear and anxiety, and breathe in hope. It can be frustrating, exhausting, and confusing, but it's comforting to know I'm not alone; I'm not the only person who has felt this way. I find myself praying the prayer of Thomas Merton who said,
"My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think I am following Your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please You does in fact please You. And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that if I do this You will lead me by the right road, though I may know nothing about it. Therefore I will trust You always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for You are ever with me, and You will never leave me to face my perils alone."
Von guten Mächten
by Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Translation found in I Want to Live These Days With You
Surrounded by good powers, faithful and still,
wonderfully protected and comforted -
in this way I want to live these days with you
and go with you into a new year.
The old year still wants to torment our hearts;
the heavy burden of evil days still holds us down.
O Lord, give our frightened souls
the salvation for which you created us.
And if you hand us the heavy cup, the bitter one,
of sorrow, filled to the highest brim,
then we take it thankfully, without trembling,
from your good and loving hand.
Yet if you want to give us joy once again
in this world and its sun's bright light,
then we want to remember what has passed,
and then our life belongs fully to you.
Today, let the candles glow warm and bright
that you brought into our darkness,
and if it can be, bring us together again!
We know your light shines in the night.
When now the profound stillness spreads round us,
let us hear that full sound of the world
that widens invisibly all around us,
the high hymn of praise of all your children.
Wonderfully secured by good powers,
we confidently await what may come.
God is with us in the evening and the morning,
and most certainly in each new day.
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