Permission to Hope
by Emmoe Doniz
If you mixed the warmth of Big Bird, the heart of Mr. Rogers and the looks of Super Mario, you would get my dad. I wish it was a joke but my dad and his older brother Miguel truly look like the Super Mario brothers. It’s a thing my brother and I used to pick on him about.
My dad is an optimist. He is a dreamer. He is an immigrant and one of 10 children. He lives to serve and loves through humor. Growing up, my dad had a saying. “The best is yet to come!” My mother would always “amen” in agreement. My brother would roll his eyes. But I would take it literally. That saying gave me permission to hope as a kid.
But then around age 9, I witnessed my mother grieve her father. (This would be the first time of many I would witness my mother crumble.)
Two years later, my dad lost his sister, also known as my favorite aunt.
Then, at age 14, I experienced a year of trauma. A trauma I am still unpacking today.
And at age 21, my dad lost employment. At 22, my brother died. Then a few years later my mother lost her older brother as well.
The best never came.
It’s hard to feel like we have permission to hope (feel an expectation and desire for a certain thing to happen) when we can’t escape, make sense of, or cope with our current reality. But both hope and reality can exist at the same time.
This is what John 19:34 says after Jesus had been crucified, “But one of the soldiers pierced his (Jesus) side with a spear, and at once there came out blood and water.” Physical evidence that Jesus’ death was reality.
We hear about Jesus’ death today and say, “It was for the good!” But we can not ignore what was also true. Mary had lost her son. The disciples had lost their best friend. The people had lost their one chance at freedom.
When we experience pain, it shapes us. It can develop a false sense of right in us to no longer hope. But as much as Jesus’ death was reality, so was His resurrection.
Jesus kept the promise of motherhood (John 18:26-27) by leaving Mary in the care of a new son, “the disciple whom He loved.” And He continued to disciple those he lived life with by breathing the Holy Spirit on them (John 20:21-22.) And He freed us llike He said He would by overcoming our biggest fear, death. “I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.” (John 16:33)
The sacrifice of Jesus was and is reality and hope coexisting.
Knowing grief myself, I can't imagine but to think that Mary, the disciples and those following Jesus would have preferred Him to come back and physically stay with them for good. But even though that didn’t happen, Jesus kept His word and His presence in their lives no longer had limitations.
What does your relationship with Hope look like?
Does hoping feel like a waste of time or an anchor?
Is there a reality that is currently too hard to face?
10000 MINUTES Practice:
Pause and pray with me.
Breathe In: Jesus
Breathe Out: You Are My Hope
Jesus.
You are my hope.
My world will have tribulation but I will take heart because You have overcome.