Dear God,
In today’s reading, Paul describes hope to the Romans (5:1-2, 5-8). He says:

Hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.

It’s easy to have hope on the good days, God. You know that. But what do we do on the bad days? What do we do when there is no evidence of your goodness, but only suffering in those around us? What do we do when we feel like Beyond Blue reader, Lynn, who wrote on the combox of my post “Dear God: On the Beatitudes and Hope”:

Hope is a wonderful thing, but when you lose it how is it regained? How do you find it when there is no evidence of it in your life? I see others who seem to have all this hope and very strong faith and wonder why I seem unable to attain hope and consistently feel hopeful.

I suppose we could start with the differentiation between the feeling of hope and the virtue of hope that Mrs. Angel Lady, Joan Wester Anderson, explains to Lynn:

I think you may be confusing the virtue of hope with the feeling of hope. Hope isn’t a feeling; like a lot of things—faith, love in particular, it’s a behavior. It’s the old “act on the outside while your feelings are catching up” syndrome. ?If you put your trust in God, you do it in an intellectual way and you decide, you commit to doing life His way. Feelings of hope may follow, but they may not. Remember that we are not responsible for the results of what we try to do, only the trying itself.

We can try on hope , like an outfit, and wear it until it fits, to fake hope in order to achieve it like we so often have to do with gratitude and optimism. Like Beyond Blue reader Barbara said to Lynn on that same Beatitude post:

Hope is more abiding than an emotion. Hope is getting up every morning (or most mornings) even when you would rather give up and turn over. Hope is posting on this website and being honest about your feelings. Hope is letting people comfort you. Hope is comforting others. It is an attitude, a way of living, and I think Hope chooses us rather than the reverse. Hope has chosen you, Lynn, even if it doesn’t feel like it right now. You have exhibited it time and again.
When you have faced as much as you have, it is downright difficult to feel you are maintaining hope. Your hopes have been broken in the past and life is difficult. As you work through the honesty of those feelings, I think that rather than losing hope, you will find it. We say God is Love, but God is Hope, too. It may feel like you are falling, but nothing will allow you to slip from God’s grasp.

One cognitive adjustment that has helped me to cling onto hope even in my disappointment, is learning to tease apart optimism from hope, thanks to the insight of your loyal disciple Patton Dodd. In separating the two terms, I am able to hope without expectation.
I try to believe in you and your goodness even when I see proof otherwise—in the extreme suffering of so many people in my life, and in the photos of the hungry African children I saw on my friend David Kuo’s blog.
Explains brilliant Patton:

Hope is neither optimistic nor pessimistic: it is realistic. With hope, you can acknowledge your current circumstances—Jesus suffering in anguish in the garden—you can want for something better—Let this cup pass from me—and still know that your life has meaning and value beyond your pain—Not my will but yours be done. ??
Hope is part of the longstanding tradition of the Christian faith because it allows you to admit the condition of your life, warts and all, and trust that God can recreate that condition. That’s the story that we’re invited to participate in: God is at work renewing all things. Some of his work is now, and some of it is eventual, but we’re called to have hope and join in that work.

I like that description because it allows plenty of room to grow and change and twist and you get the point. Patton’s definition of hope is like polyester pants with an elastic waste: wrinkle-free and very flexible. I can lose 20 pounds and wear them. More importantly, I can gain 20 pounds and wear them. And a day of traveling in a car and an airplane doesn’t add any creases!
Not all that stylish, I know, but it hope isn’t sexy. Not if it’s real.
I think what you are trying to say, God, is that true hope does not disappoint because it has no expectations hanging on it (as opposed to optimism, which has a few dozen requests weighing it down); that we already have hope in our hearts, so all we need to do is access it … to punch in a code, just like we do at an ATM machine. Because the dough is there, in the bank. Figuratively speaking, of course, because I’m not Rhonda Byrne. Pure hope has already been given to us, and no one but our own foolish selves can take it away.
The most important message, then, about hope is exactly what Beyond Blue reader Cully said to Lynn, even though it sounds simplified, like something out of the mouth of Barney, the mentally challenged purple dinosaur that giggles every 1.5 minutes precisely to annoy sleep-deprived, anxious parents (Sorry, Cully, I really meant that as a compliment!):

The very first thing – the most important thing – is to know that God is Love (God Loves you – always has and always will).?