Thriving...in Spite of It

What does hope have to do with courage?  I got the answer from a bumblebee.  Just a few feet away from me, an imminent threat to some, he hovers around the lavender this morning, tediously but persistently checking each tiny blossom for pollen. I move to pick up my coffee mug; he dodges ever so slightly, then returns to his task, inching closer and closer to where I sit as he works his way down the row.  It’s not that he’s careless of or oblivious to danger; he is just more determined than his instinctive and fully justifiable fears to secure what he needs in spite of them. Many of the blooms have dried or fallen, but he persists in checking each one anyway, driven by a minuscule possibility that there still might be something left. He hopes. He is driven by hope. His hope gives him courage to persist. And as he persists, courageously, he is rewarded by finding the occasional prize. Because of his courage, he finds more reason to hope.  So hope and courage flow in an...

Perhaps one of the most misunderstood verses in the New Testament is found at the beginning of the book of James. I love how this leader of the early church, who was also the half-brother of Jesus himself, dives right into one of the most baffling ideas about faith -- the hardest thing to understand, and also the hardest thing to do: to walk through the darkest of times with your joy intact. Like most profound truths, this is, to use one of my husband’s favorite terms, “better felt than telt.” In fact, it seems almost heartless to say it to someone who is going through a crisis--it’s hard to even read it for ourselves. Faith exists in a realm that is completely opposite of what we call reality. All our lives, we learn to trust the tangible, to rely on the factual. We cling to the lifeboat we can recognize and touch, rather than leaning on God, whom we cannot see or feel. But when our hearts are breaking, when our world is shattered by death, betrayal, or distress, when the storms come...