"Hope is not something we accomplish. Hope is a divine gift." Oh, how true! Despair shows up every time I see or hear the news, and it surely showed up quite frequently during the past month while my husband was in the hospital. (He's home now, and on the mend, and I do thank you for your prayers!) But every time, when a better day suddenly turned worse, hope showed up, too--something, someone, a sight, a sound, and I'd think, "OK. I get it. Yes." My faith has always been a roller-coaster journey, plenty of ups and downs--I play the part of piety pretty well, but it's God the Runaway Bunny's mom who always shows up and says, "Don't worry--you're not going to get away." Hope--and faith--really aren't something we can *do*; they're gifts.
I am not the only person to find the image of the Runaway Bunny's mom a comforting image of God, but I did write about my experience of that caring and constant presence in a meditation for Forward Day by Day a dozen or so years ago. A year or so after I wrote it, I found the image in a sermon by the late Dean Sam Lloyd, and again in something by another wise writer (I can't recall now which one). I guess is we're paying attention, many of us come to some similar experiences of saying, "Oh--yes--*this*!"
"Hope is not something we accomplish. Hope is a divine gift." Oh, how true! Despair shows up every time I see or hear the news, and it surely showed up quite frequently during the past month while my husband was in the hospital. (He's home now, and on the mend, and I do thank you for your prayers!) But every time, when a better day suddenly turned worse, hope showed up, too--something, someone, a sight, a sound, and I'd think, "OK. I get it. Yes." My faith has always been a roller-coaster journey, plenty of ups and downs--I play the part of piety pretty well, but it's God the Runaway Bunny's mom who always shows up and says, "Don't worry--you're not going to get away." Hope--and faith--really aren't something we can *do*; they're gifts.
I’m glad to hear that your husband is home. And I love the image of God as the mom in Runaway Bunny
I am not the only person to find the image of the Runaway Bunny's mom a comforting image of God, but I did write about my experience of that caring and constant presence in a meditation for Forward Day by Day a dozen or so years ago. A year or so after I wrote it, I found the image in a sermon by the late Dean Sam Lloyd, and again in something by another wise writer (I can't recall now which one). I guess is we're paying attention, many of us come to some similar experiences of saying, "Oh--yes--*this*!"