Hope hurts

Sitting here in the quiet morning sunshine, and my heart feels at peace. 

Not everything is set right, not everything is flawlessly lovely, but enough things are good that I can have hope again. 

Enough things are good that my heart can dare to entertain ideas of sheer goodness and gladness.

I couldn't before. I couldn't bear the weight of the possibility of joy, last year. It hurt my heart to reach that far. Our contractor had left our house ruined, but more than that, he had punched me right in the bright hope, right in the joy, and left it shattered.

I didn't realize how healing it would be, to move away from the space where that happened, and set our hearts free to remember that good things can happen and good dreams can come true.

It was a hard and humbling lesson, but a good one, I think, for a christian to learn. Sometimes hope is out of reach. Sometimes there is no strength to even lift my eyes to the hills. 

I can believe that God intends good toward me and at the same time, be utterly unable to feel it, let alone rest in it. Despair isn't a matter of not having the will or desire to see the goodness of God in the land of the living. 

I hadn't felt that for so long before. I didn't know it could last and last and leave me flat for weeks and months and years. I didn't know.

I didn't know it could be painful to hope.

If your loved ones are unable to reach out and take hold of hope, it is not because they don't want to. It isn't necessarily because their hearts are stubborn or hard. 

It just might be because hope can hurt too much.

(I read this verse this morning and my heart sang with the joy of hope. I was able to bear the weight of it again, the weight of yearning for things to be that good and true -

Your dead shall live; their bodies shall rise. You who dwell in the dust, awake and sing for joy! For your dew is a dew of light, and the earth will give birth to the dead.

Isaiah 26:19 ESV

And it felt so nice to hold it in my heart. ❤️)