{"id":2254,"date":"2023-01-03T09:18:23","date_gmt":"2023-01-03T14:18:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/js1cd06kre.onrocket.site\/?p=2254"},"modified":"2023-01-03T09:18:54","modified_gmt":"2023-01-03T14:18:54","slug":"your-one-true-hope","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/2023\/01\/03\/your-one-true-hope\/","title":{"rendered":"Your One True Hope"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

To listen to this reflection as a podcast, <\/em>click here<\/a>.

\u201cHope is good thing, maybe the best of things.  And no good thing ever dies\u201d<\/em> (Andy, wrongfully imprisoned in The Shawshank Redemption<\/em>).

\u201cLet me tell you something, my friend.  Hope is a dangerous thing.  Hope can drive a man insane\u201d<\/em> (Andy\u2019s skeptical friend Red, who\u2019s been in that same prison for 30 years). 

Author James Bryan Smith has experienced firsthand both the joys and the heartaches associated with hope. 

He and his wife Meghan suffered every parent\u2019s nightmare.  They lost their daughter Madeline shortly after her second birthday.  Because Madeline had been afflicted with a genetic disorder, they were hesitant to bring another child into the world.

When Meghan once again became pregnant, they held on to God and to each other.  Then when they learned they were going to have a little girl \u2013 a healthy little girl \u2013 they immediately settled on a name they hadn\u2019t even discussed.  They would call her Hope. 

In his book The Good and Beautiful You<\/em>, Smith writes that Hope became \u201ca bright, vibrant, lively, sunny, blonde-haired, happy little girl.\u201d  Everyone who knew her remarked, \u201c\u2019She sure lives up to her name; she is so positive and joyful and\u2026full of hope.\u2019  That became a running joke in our family.\u201d 

Then things changed.

About the time Hope turned 15, Smith noticed that the light seemed to have gone out of her life.  She admitted she was struggling with anxiety.  When James and Meghan wondered if she might like to see a counselor, Hope agreed.

Little by little, under the care of that kind therapist, Hope began to heal.  But as Smith recalls, \u201cWe had no idea what she had been dealing with.\u201d

One day the counselor asked Meghan and James to come in for a conversation.  \u201cThere are some things [Hope] wants you to know about, but she would rather have me tell you than tell you herself.\u201d  They didn\u2019t know what to expect, especially when the counselor said, \u201cHope has been carrying a terrible burden.\u201d 

When Hope was 13, she had been physically and sexually assaulted by a boy at her school.  She had succeeded at hiding the emotional and physical wounds.  \u201cShe confided in two of her friends,\u201d the counselor said, \u201cbut they did not believe her.  And then they abandoned her, and eventually even betrayed and bullied her.\u201d  Along the way she lost her faith in God \u2013 a God she was sure had rejected her.

The Smiths were in shock.  They could hardly breathe.  \u201cBut why?\u201d Meghan asked.  \u201cWhy would she not tell us?\u201d 

The therapist, who had become very fond of Hope, choked up as she answered.  \u201cBecause of her name<\/em>.  She is ashamed of what happened to her.  She knows that she came into a broken family, a family that lost a child.  She loved her name when she was young, but after the assault and the bullying, she felt she was broken, that she was no longer able to be the hope<\/em> that you, and everyone, needed her to be.\u201d

None of us can ever be the hope<\/em> for someone else, even for the people we love the most.  That\u2019s an intolerably heavy burden for anyone to bear. 

As Hope\u2019s recovery continued in the years that followed \u2013 as she experienced deep emotional healing and a renewal of her faith \u2013 she grasped that living up to her name had never been her job in the first place. 

Hope is always God\u2019s job<\/em>.  And it is always God\u2019s gift. 

Paul writes in Romans 15:13: \u201cMay the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.\u201d

May the God of all hope be your one and only hope<\/em> every day of this brand-new year. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

To listen to this reflection as a podcast, click here. \u201cHope is good thing, maybe the best of things.  And no good thing ever dies\u201d (Andy, wrongfully imprisoned in The Shawshank Redemption). \u201cLet me tell you something, my friend.  Hope is a dangerous thing.  Hope can drive a man insane\u201d (Andy\u2019s skeptical friend Red, who\u2019s been in that same prison for… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2255,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[18],"class_list":["post-2254","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-hope"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2254","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2254"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2254\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2257,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2254\/revisions\/2257"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2255"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2254"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2254"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2254"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}