Big hope. Little hope. I am so grateful for both.

Let me explain.

When I was in college, one movie trilogy in particular explained hope to me in a way I’d never understood it. (And it wasn’t Star Wars, although for those who know me, that’s a commendable guess.) It was Lord of the Rings.

The speech Sam gives Frodo as they face their likely demise on the side of Mt Doom shook me in a good way. Sam asks Frodo if he remembers the Shire (their home they’d traveled far from) and talks about things they are missing back home, and the one that stuck out to me was strawberries and cream. “Do you remember the taste of strawberries?”, Sam asks. And Frodo doesn’t. Sam has to remind him.

They had traveled so far, and their circumstances and feelings had completely blinded Frodo to everything but the current darkness. And there is Sam, talking about strawberries and cream.

I have found in times of darkness and confusion and anxiety, one of life’s most meaningful gifts is having friends who will remind me of the strawberries.

In this analogy, strawberries represent the little hopes. Little hopes for the future have been of great importance to me, and I think, to most of us recently. A few of my little hopes are for an afternoon at Target Field, a day at the beach, meeting friends at a coffee shop, pretty much anything with family or friends, hugging my Haitian elders, and having the Grace Village kids sneak upstairs to see if there is any candy in my grocery bags.

Your little hopes are probably different than mine. Maybe a concert. A visit with a grandparent. A spa day. A day your children spend at school. A morning at the gym. Getting lost in a crowd. I know I’m not the only one with relatively small fantasies right now. And that’s ok. We have to remember the strawberries. We have to remind each other about strawberries.

Those little hopes help give us the stamina as we focus our gaze on big hope.

You may have experienced moments today that you only dreamt of a few weeks ago. Stores are reopening, people are venturing out to see one another, and our local grocery store is making construction progress on a drive thru Caribou Coffee that I’m wishing will start brewing sweet espresso any day now.

Yes, many of those little wonderful moments we dream about and can almost taste are bound to happen again. They may be sooner than we think. But things might never be the “same” same. 

The reality is that there is no guarantee of tomorrow for any of us. And we might arrive at those anticipated moments without some of the people we had wanted to share them with. That isn’t just because of the current crisis in our world. That is the broken state our world has known since the Garden of Eden.

And that is why I put all my big hope in Jesus. And peace fills my soul. It doesn’t always fill my emotions, and I have to hunt for strawberries. (I think that used to just be called counting your blessings.) But, I do have an inner joy that runs deeper than I can explain because it doesn’t come from me. It is a gift from my Father God.

I’ve been back in the states for eight whole weeks already, and I can’t believe how quickly that time has gone. Every day I get messages from people I love in Haiti and wish I was there. But, I am also grateful to be with my family here, and I know I would be miserable in Haiti, unable to get here. I have to trust the path I’m on and the Lord who lights that path.

Working with elderly people has by default turned my attention to the eternal. Several of the wonderful elders I moved to Haiti to serve have passed away since I first met them, or they have lost spouses or other family members. But I move forward with great big hope that we will be reunited in heaven along with all who have ever believed.

So, fix your heart on big hope and maybe let your eyes adjust to the light of a thousand little tangible hopes for now.

 

“We believe that Jesus died and rose again and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him. According to the Lord’s own word, we tell you that we who are still alive, who are left till the coming of the Lord, will certainly not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever. Therefore encourage each other with these words.”

1 Thessalonaians 4:14-18