What is Hope?

It has been a while since I have posted a blog, but this one is sure to be something special.  I have completed my first semester of college, and in that time I met so many new people.  Over time of spending day after day with these new faces, eating together at the cafe, going to BSU every Tuesday night (or, if we are being honest, everyday), keeping each other on top of studying, having movie nights in each others dorms…They became more like family than the strangers they once were to me.  For this blog, you will get to read the words of one of those individuals.  She enjoys writing like I do, so I could not help but ask her to collaborate on a post with me.  And luckily for all of us, she agreed.

            Who is this girl who wrote the words you are about to read?  She goes by Bugg, and she happens to be one of the greatest, Christ-loving people you will ever meet.  Her love and desire for Christ amazes me every day, and simply knowing her is such a blessing.  Christ shines through not only her, but through the words she writes.

            So now, here is the blog post:

            There are many trials that God places in our lives.  These trials are not created to break us, but rather to build our hope in God up.  After going through difficult situations, we seem to always come out stronger.  The main factor in that is hope – a hope only God can supply.

            At times, we feel lost, confused, or afraid.  Sometimes we feel caged in by the opinions and expectations of people in our lives.  However, the thing is that while we struggle inside this cage of despair, God holds the key of hope.  If we are willing, He will give us the key, the hope that will eventually unlock all of the glorious plans He has already written.  He will show us all He has in store for us, but most importantly, His hope will allow us to fly out of the cage and into the sky of His will.

            Sometimes, however, hope is hard to find and hard to keep.  It is even hard to understand what hope exactly is at different times.  And while I could try to list several situations to explain it all, my dear friend Bugg wrote down a specific experience she had this Christmas.  She travelled to East Asia on a missions trip and magnificently connected it to the definition of hope. 

            Everyone loves the best part of things, so now to the best part of this post.  Here they are: the wonderful words of Bugg.

What is hope:

            A college senior, in that cold city, stood five stories high at her dorm window with wind against her face that pierces as deep as the soul.  She took her last breath and jumped – because something was missing.  The heaviness became too much – and it was better to end it all then to go home and tell her family she might not have made the grade she needed.

            In the East Asian culture, people have children as more of an investment than as an act of love.  Parents raise their children so that they will go to school, get good jobs, and take care of them.  So for thousands of students walking around the streets of J-town, the pressure is on.  If they do not perform, they are considered a disgrace – and everything in that culture rests on the line of honor.  You must bring honor to your family.  That is all there is.  So the battle between honor and hopelessness begins its fight at the moment of conception.  The ability to perform at a certain level is the only cushion on which they can rest, which means many of them never do; and most of them have never even heard of Jesus.

            That college senior had committed suicide just a few weeks before we got there.  A couple of days into our stay, we met a girl who was also a college senior.  She lived in the same dorm from which the other girl had jumped.  We told the girl we met about Jesus.  That was the first time she had ever heard of Him.

            “There are not very many Christians here,” another student told us.

            We told them of Christmas – of the night Jesus was born.  They asked us if Jesus was born in America and were shocked when we told them no.

            For three weeks, we loved them in every way that we could.  We spent every waking moment with them, and we told them about Jesus.  I saw hope – alive…It was working itself into their hearts.  Their eyes grew brighter and their feet danced lighter with each passing day.  I watched the realness of the gospel fill their minds with this idea that maybe, just maybe, there is something more.  But a decision was never made and we watched fear and questions wrestle with the hope, but we loved with wreckless abandon and with absolutely no withdrawal – we held nothing back.  And change happened, even if a decision was not yet made.  Seeds were planted, watered, and hope sunk its roots deeper and deeper everyday.

            And so here is what I know hope to be:

            It is slow – a very slow and long process found mixed within long walks down a street where they hold your arms to keep you from slipping on all the ice.  It is found stirred in between the questions they ask over hot meals, while they teach you how to correctly use chopsticks.  It lives in the games we played at the gym, when we laughed together and let living be simple and full.  Hope takes a long time; sometimes even years.  It grows like a tree, starting small as a seed, then growing towards the sky – and it could be fifty years before it is ever fully grown, but once the seed is planted, it quietly and slowly suffocates the fear, and one day, all of a sudden you look back, and everything has  changed – and that, my friend, is hope.

Romans 5:3-5