It feels silly to write about my life in quiet Connecticut when the world is falling apart at the seams and needs our hands to piece it back together. But I also believe there are stories to be heard and we need to keep sharing, to keep speaking hope into the world. Not the fake hope, the privileged hope, or the hope of people who don't suffer much, but the hope that all humanity shares in the deep of the soul and the dark of the night. The hope for morning, for light, for the world to stop bleeding. The hope as an anchor of the soul.
"We have this as a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul, a hope that enters into the inner place behind the veil"
In my son's room there is an anchor on the wall. In my bible, Hebrew's 6:19 is covered in thick neon-yellow highlighter. My wife's bracelet has an anchor hanging from her wrist. My journal has sketches of anchors with words of triumph and hope around them. But then it all seems foolish when you read the stories from across an ocean, or down the street. Why am I obsessed with hope when many others face a much more hopeless dawn today?
But I know why. It's because we must hope. It's in our blood. Even when life seems easy, we know the truth and we must hope in the midst of war. Some of us get to sit at a computer and write about fear while others are whispering their last breath of hope into the air, praying it isn't shot down before it reaches His ears.
We have a part to play, and it goes beyond the fake hope. The real hope is something we act upon. Real hope is believing that the world doesn't have to be this way, and even if it does, we won't stand by quietly. Real hope is people with resources giving to those who have none. Real hope is using your time and talent to lift others out of despair. Real hope is believing that time and space can't stop us from loving in a tangible way.
Giving money isn't the only way to put hope into action, but it's one way:
Are you a writer? Maybe you need to write about this. Are you a doctor? Perhaps you should travel and provide aid. What is a unique way that you can put hope into action? If it's not about this particular devastation, there are plenty of other options. Whatever you do, remember that Hebrews 6:19 is about a hope that goes so far beyond a feeling, into the core of our existence, and it calls us to be a people of the cross who do more than talk.