Living Hope

I spent time during the last week of December as I typically do—picking out my outfit for New Year’s Eve. This year, I wanted something a little fancy but still felt comfortable, like the leggings and T-shirts that had become my uniform for 2020.

I picked it all out, hung it up on the door, and planned to change into it around 8 p.m. to go back to my couch. I had purchased the typical snacks and drinks and was ready to go. In doing all this, I could feel the sense of excitement and hope surrounding the new year. 2020 had been deemed bad and 2021 was going to be a fresh start for life.

Webster’s dictionary defines hope in two ways: 1) to cherish a desire with anticipation and 2) trust.

I bet all of us have felt hope in the first definition when the clock has struck midnight. But did we think of it in the second definition?

Trust.

Trust in what? Trust in whom? Putting our trust in God can be exceptionally difficult when hard things are happening—such as a pandemic. Add in political unrest, racial injustice, and overall tension in different areas of life and it can almost seem impossible.  

“Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding;”

— PROVERBS 3:5

As reGROUP Coordinator, people have asked me a question that I used to ask all the time before I became a believer: “Why do bad things happen to good people and why can’t God just make it go away?” Author Lee Strobel says that there are two kinds of people who ask this question—ones who wanted an academic response and ones who wanted comfort. I used to think people wanted an academic answer, and I would talk about God giving us free will, which gave the potential for evil to enter the world. But, the more I was asked, the more I realized people wanted to be comforted. They wanted to feel better.

Do you long to be comforted? Do you want to feel better? Do you want someone to come to you, hug you (not from a social distance), and tell you that everything is going to be OK? Of course you do! Who would not want that right now?!

Right now, with this pandemic and social distancing still present in our lives, where do you go for comfort? Is it your Bible? Is it God? Or is it something else?

Finding comfort during times of distress is a healthy and natural thing to do. Throw in the “new normal,” fear, and isolation and the search for comfort can become dangerous. If you have that extra slice of pizza, another few beers, type in that website, make endless lists, exercise a few more hours a day, stay up later to finish the series on Netflix… no one will know the difference.  It’s just for right now, while the world is a mess. I’ll stop when things get back to normal. 

That’s just the thing, though; we put our hope in a new year and six days into the new year we watched as the political divide in our country came to a tipping point, COVID-19 case numbers were back up, and this new, sparkly 2021 was beginning to look a whole lot like 2020. Now what? What do we do now? There are endless articles about what this time is doing to us. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that anxiety has tripled and depression has quadrupled in 2020 versus 2019.

Teaching Minister Kailey Newkirk says, “After months of pandemic … we’ve all been anesthetizing ourselves in some form or another … we are different now.” We can’t control the masses, we can’t control a pandemic, we can’t control others, and we are spinning to grasp onto something. It doesn’t have to be that hurt, habit, or hang-up. We can control what we reach for—even though no one is looking. Maybe you reach for your Bible, maybe you reach for your phone (not to scroll the news or social media but to FaceTime a friend or send a nice text to someone else), maybe you reach for help, maybe you reach for community.

I know that this seems way easier said than done.  

“And we know that in all things God works for the good...”

— ROMANS 8:28A

A friend once said, “Togetherness in the midst of diversity is hard.” How many of us have unfriended people on social media because they said something with which we didn’t agree? What if we took a minute and remembered why we are friends, or the things we do have in common, or remembered that person is longing for comfort too? I have hope that we won’t forget God is in control. God uses our pain to get our attention and to help us grow.

I hope this time of strife draws us closer to what is important on this earth, our relationships with each other, and our relationship with God. Jesus Christ is our living hope and will always be there when we reach for him. 

If you have ever felt like there is something standing between you and the person God has called you to be—or if you just feel like life isn’t what you thought it would be—reGROUP is an opportunity to walk toward healing and recovery through a safe group community. Find more information here.

Sheri Wantuck has been attending Summit for four years and is the reGROUP and Connect Coordinator. She loves cuddling with her greyhound, hot coffee with windows open, and prefers high fives over hugs.