Creating Hope
After college, I worked with children with special needs in a child development center. One of the activities I would create for the children was an art project, usually with a theme or related to the season of the year. I remember distinctly that it was all about the “process, not the product.”
Earlier this year, I attended a conference where I was a participant in a large group doing an art activity using paints and a 5 x 7 canvas. When I sat down, the facilitator led me, step by step, to create an image following her instructions. The next day, I had some free time and found myself returning to the paints and canvas to create my own image. Finding myself looking at a blank canvas, I took the paint and began the process.
I didn’t have a plan in mind, but allowed myself to pay attention in the discomfort of not knowing what was next. It was a familiar feeling I experienced shortly after my husband suddenly died. I had no clue what was next. But I did know I needed to find some hope.
Hope is like a dimmer switch, slowly illuminating the dark space we find ourselves in after our loss. Hope, like the painting I made, didn’t form in one swoop. Hope emerged and inched its way into my soul as I took the next step, did the next thing, and trusted what I didn’t know yet.
What we can’t see yet, but know is coming, is hope.
It requires a level of trust where we move forward, still grieving, but holding on and creating hope one step at a time. Trusting God in the unknown, while knowing we are loved, seen, heard, and known by our Abba Father, will create the hope we need.
