Hope is so important in our lives. It is what motivates us to do the things we do every day. It is a positive mindset, that keeps us going, allows us to be vulnerable when we are unsure how things will work out. Not everyone has the ability to hope because their circumstances can be so bad, the poor, the sick who have no hope of medical attention, the person who has serious mental health and has no control over their thoughts. So if we are lucky enough to have hope, we really do have a lot to be thankful for.
I received a book today, which I ordered some time ago, for our College "A Year with Dietrich Bonhoeffer" and I had a quick flick through and stumbled on an extract from a letter or paper he wrote from Prison: "
For most people, the compulsory abandonment of planning for the future means that they are forced back into living just for the moment, irresponsibly, frivolously, or resignedly; some few dream longingly of better times to come, and try to forget the present. We find both these courses equally impossible, and there remains for us only the very narrow way, often extremely diffiuclt to find, of living every day as if it were our last, and yet living in faith and responsibility as though there were to be a great future. "Houses and fields and vinyard shall again be bought in this land" proclaims Jeremiah (32:15), in paradoxical contrast to his prophecies of woe, just before the destruction of the Holy City. It is a sign from God and a pledge of a fresh start and a great future, just when all seems black. Thinking and acting for the sake of the coming generation, but being ready to go any day without fear or anxiety - that in practice, is the spirit in which we ar forced to live. It is not easy to be brave and keep that spirit alive, but it is imperative."
This last line of this letter " It is not easy ...... " really stands out for me as it telling us how important it is to have hope and that we often have to be brave to have that hope.
I didn't know much, if anything, about Dietrich Bonhoeffer but when I flicked through this book it certainly peaked an interest to know more. The blurb on the back of the book states that "He is admired by people as the example of what a modern Christian must be:"