39 "Bright Hope"

Pardon for sin and a peace that endureth,
thine own dear presence to cheer and to guide,
strength for today and bright hope for tomorrow,
blessings all mine, with ten thousand beside!

I don't know if the title of today's entry is taken from the beloved hymn, "Great is Thy Faithfulness," but that's the song that popped into my head as soon as I opened the Good Enough book today and saw the title, "Bright Hope." 

I also thought, "Shew. We could sure use some bright hope today," remembering that the first two of twenty-one funerals are beginning in Uvalde, TX.

Kate and Jessica write, "Too much hope, and you are, frankly, delusional. Too little hope, and you will drown in despair. So, how do we have hope when our reality looks so hopeless?" (p 220) 

They turn to the prophet Ezekiel - the man of strange dreams and visions, "a traumatized witness to a traumatized people" (p 220). A man of many sorrows, a man in need of hope. And what does God do for this prophet? 

God sets Ezekiel on top of a mass grave, thousands of dead, dry bones. And God asks Ezekiel "a really stupid question" (p 221): Can these bones live?   

Of course not. 

"What good is hope in this place, spoken over a pile of drying bones?" (p 221) 

(Feel familiar?) 

And yet ... 

And yet, God restores the Valley of Dry Bones, breathing life into what was once buried and forgotten. 

God restores the house of Israel ... BUT "it doesn't come without the participation of her people" (p 222). 

There's no standing by passively watching God work; the land and the people will be restored because the people will build a new temple and establish a new polity. The people will rebuild. 

And perhaps the greatest reminder of bright hope and God's faithfulness is tucked into the very last verse of the book of Ezekiel: 

Ezekiel 48:35 " ... And the name of the city from that time on shall be, The Lord Is There.

As Jessica and Kate say: Not was there, but you ruined it. Not will be there, once you do these things or get your act together. 

The Lord is there. 

That's the bright hope reminder I needed today. 

May I be a person marked by bright hope in the midst of the darkest of hours. May I be an Easter person. (p 225)  

Pastor Allison 

I'm curious: 

If you're feeling like I'm feeling, I hope you will try the "A Good Enough Step" on page 225: 

Find something that is useless, unrelated, and could be made into a terrible art project. Make a pile of things and then make something. "As you go, just focus on this one thing and complete it with only one goal in mind: let it make you laugh" (p 225). 

"Look, we can't make something from nothing. We are not God. So make something with your own hands and take a minute to pronounce it truly terrible ... and good. We must make something from what we have every day. What if you already have in your experience, and in your life, what it takes to make something good happy? Just from what you have already been given?"