Hope Made Explicit

Recently I've felt a malaise descending over me. The daily grind, the continual reminders how unfair life is for so many, the monotony of it all. It's been really getting to me. Finding and living in hope is a primary need of all humans. Where there is no hope it is hard for life to survive. Researchers surveyed Holocaust survivors and discovered that the ones that made it out in the best shape were the ones capable of having hope for a better future.

Twice a year, the Christian church takes time to explicitly hope--to acknowledge our need for hope, that hope has a name, and that in spite of the tediousness of life we too can be givers of hope to others. Lent is about both accepting the difficulty of life and also seeing hope within that difficulty. Lent is the "yes and..." for life. It takes the hardship of life, declares it to be real, then asks where hope can be found in it. And more than just where hope can be found, Lent helps us ask how we can be sources of hope in the midst of it. For me, Lent this year has meant embracing my malaise, remembering that it is not all-consuming, and looking for where I can be a source of hope for others. Yeah, life still gets me down, but it is the remembering that there is always hope that keeps me going. Lent makes hope explicit.