By Ruth Statz
Staff Writer
Hope is seemingly contrary to the natural human instinct. We like to operate from a secure standpoint. We carry around planners on our phones to plan out our every move down to the very minute; planners to plan our days, weeks, months, even years. It’s as though the only way we could possibly dare to have hope is if we’re assured of success.
I remember, in high school, one particularly strenuous meeting with an advisor. She asked me where I saw myself in five years, to which I responded, “Hopefully not in prison.”
She didn’t laugh.
It was a pretty morbid joke, but I shrank at the thought of being expected to see into my future. Personally, I cringe at all that potential. Just trying to decide between different brands of kombucha at Aldi gives me lowkey anxiety. Yet this woman expected me to know what I would be doing in five years, when I could barely have told you what I would be doing the next day. For all I knew, I could be working as an orthodontist in Quebec in five years. You never know. Crazier things have happened. Jesus established his entire Church in just three!
However, it says something about the human mindset that we ask questions like “where do you see yourself in five years?” I firmly appreciate the incredible good that comes from these kinds of questions, such as making goals for ourselves, holding ourselves accountable, and living up to commitments. If we didn’t make goals for ourselves, we wouldn’t grow.
At the same time, it’s important to recognize how much we put store in our plans. We can feel like everything depends on them — our life, our happiness, our identity. When things don’t go according to plan, we can feel like we’ve let our friends down, our family, and even God.
We are now halfway through Lent — how many of us have already failed in some of our resolutions? In those moments, how quickly do we go from a “crushing it” mindset to “I’m a failure”?
The truth is that neither mindset is entirely true. How many of us feel like we’ve got our lives perfectly under control? That we have everything together? In reality, so little is under our control, and although our instinctual response to that might be to panic, it is actually perfectly ok.
For instance, let’s say you have a really good day. Everything went according to “plan.” You were productive: you checked everything off your list; you ate well, slept well, you socialized and prayed, you earned a big paycheck, you got a good grade on your exam. Then the next day doesn’t go so well.
Why? Are you trying less? Maybe. But what if your efforts are just the same as before, only this time, you accidentally forgot to set your alarm and now you’re late for class, or that meal from the caf just didn’t sit right with you.
Maybe something is totally off between you and your friends, or you got a poor grade on your exam, or you just couldn’t find time to say your usual prayers. What was different? None of that was your fault, per se. That’s just life. It’s unpredictable, ever changing, painful, and difficult to cope with.
This is where hope is not only helpful but absolutely essential. It is impossible to hope in anything inconsistent or constantly fluctuating and therefore we should not place our hope in the world, in our plans, or in ourselves. It makes sense to hope in only one thing, that is the cross which never shifts and never falls. As St. Bruno of Cologne said, “While the world changes the Cross stands firm.”
As students at Franciscan University, our lives are a whirlwind of classes, social life, work, and ministry, especially at this time of year. Some of us will be graduating, others will be looking for internships, and maybe some are planning on doing some kind of summer ministry. Whatever your plans may be, I’m sure it feels like there’s a lot going on and that it all depends on you to get it right.
God doesn’t need us to get everything right. For when we are weak and we fall, He delights in picking us up again — because it means He is holding us in His hands. St. Therese of Lisieux once said, “It is just this — to find myself at my death with empty hands — that gives me joy, for having nothing, I shall receive everything from God.” Hope is the reliance not on our own strength but on Christ’s, thus if we allow ourselves to be weak before Him, we can surely hope that He will use His strength to carry us through this life and into eternity with Him.