Faith… Hope… Love…

Welcome to another Fresh Start Monday, where we change the narrative… As February closes and we embrace March, many are becoming disheartened because of the changes in our environment. Many are feeling like they are living in ‘Déjà vu’… while the hope of others has begun to dwindle because the challenges keep increasing. The demand is placed on us to do more with less. How do we respond? What do we do?

Once we live long enough, we will have experiences where our safe spaces are threatened and the familiar is removed. When our beliefs are questioned and we must return to the core of our being. Yet there are times when absolutely everything is tested. Does that mean we should roll over and die? Absolutely not!

“And now abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love” 1 Corinthians 13:13

Based on my understanding of that verse, when everything is tested, whether we pass or fail the test… faith, hope and love will remain. So, when we lose our jobs, or we get sick, lose a loved one, financial embarrassed, endure turmoil at work, school or home… faith, hope and love will remain.  

Faith can be thought of as confidence in a person or thing. While hope can be thought of as an optimistic attitude, that could be heavily influenced by our faith, ultimately our beliefs.

Faith will help us get through challenges now, we may say it’s difficult but this too will pass. Faith says I’m ill now but I will get better. Our faith colours our expectations and act as a guide for our actions. Yet, there are times when suffering is long, or our pain gets too deep, a time we need to access hope.

Hope, seemingly so simple yet its value is far reaching. Without hope we will give up. Without hope we will surrender to the challenges. Without hope we will accept defeat. Why? you ask, because hope says it could happen in the future. Hope strengthens us, enabling us to endure hardships. Unfortunately, sometimes these hardships last longer than we are able to cope and our hope starts dwindling too.

Then many will transition to the very core of our being, the core of our beliefs. Attempting to hold on to the single straw left… and that is love. It is so ironic, because the last straw, has been intertwined in our very being, it is the first, the last and everything in between. At this point we say to ourselves, it’s not happening now, I don’t know if it ever will but at least I know He loves me! God loves me! This last straw of love is able to reach us at our lowest of lowest, it is able to heal brokenness, it is able to do what seems impossible, hence it is no wonder “the greatest of these is love”.

As we continue in a time of constant change may we hold tightly to faith, hope and love. May we feed our faith, grow our hope and cultivate love. So that, when the times of hardship come, we are able endure, putting our best foot forward always.

Let us therefore, go forth in faith, hope, love… and change our narrative…