The Thrill of Hope

When hope is scary...

Dec 30, 2024

This year, for the first time in recorded history, the Gerhardt family (Justin’s family) and the Mays family (my family) all sat at the same table and shared Christmas dinner. On January 6th Justin and I will have been a couple for 30 years. This dinner was a long time in the making. What dreams may come…

At the table, after the mmmms and wows and that’s amazings, after the catch up questions and answers, the wheres and whats and whos, I asked permission to pilot the conversation for a bit. “I have this Christmas carol lyric stuck in my head, and I want to see how it hits you.” I asked, “Tell me about a time when you felt ‘the thrill of hope.’”

Four days before Christmas Justin and I and the girls met Justin’s sister Jamie and her daughter Scarlet at the movie theater. We snuck in late to see Mufasa. Jamie and Justin and I had all seen The Lion King together as kids, way back in 1994, and loved it—obviously. Unfortunately, Mufasa is no Lion King. We spent most of the movie trying not to giggle too loudly.

But there was this one thing…

The whole movie is driven (the plot, the character development, the conflict—all of it) by a longing for, as Wikipedia calls it, “a mythical land” called Milele. Mufasa’s parents sing a song about it just before he’s separated from them. It goes like this:

Beyond the horizon
Beyond the last cloud in the sky
There's a place I know
Imagine a kingdom
The water flows
The grass is high
It's not a dream
Someday, we'll go

Throughout the movie, Mufasa struggles to hold onto to his faith in the place, but at every turn it’s Milele that guides his choices and inspires his perseverance.

And I couldn’t help wondering what it would look like to hold that tightly to a promise, to live bravely into a hope, to risk everything for an unseen kingdom.

And I couldn’t help wondering why so many of us, descendants of the King, destined for the Kingdom, don’t.

At the table, we tell stories about presents, snow, trips. We tell stories about waiting and planning and wondering.

My sister-in-law tells a story from when she was a little girl about waiting for family to come from out of town. She says, “I was so excited I couldn’t sleep. The excitement was kind of out of control and the only way I could calm down was to tell myself that a hurricane might hit and then they wouldn’t be able to come.” Justin exclaims, “Wait a minute! What?!” She explains, “I don’t know. I guess the possibility of something bad happening took the edge off. It helped me sleep.”

We all laugh at the threatening hurricane that helped eight year old Erin make it through the night.

Sometimes hope is scarier than a hurricane—especially big hope, the kind we bet everything on.

Sometimes hope feels like the first big climb on a rollercoaster. If rollercoasters came with brakes, most of us would use them.

To help us sleep.

In less than two weeks I’ll be releasing my newest project, The Happiest Saddest People. I have a lot of hopes for it. I don’t think I realized how many hopes until yesterday.

I was on a walk with Justin, looping our town lake, when I asked, “Are you concerned about the level of my expectations?” He said a quick, “No.” But then smiled and cocked his head. “What exactly are your expectations?”

Up until that point I hadn’t told anybody what I was hoping—not even myself. But I guess I knew it was a lot—because of what I asked Justin and because of the way my whole body tensed when he said “What exactly…”

As I began to answer, I thought I might throw up.

It’s a good thing we were walking in the woods away from the path, because what happened next was the kind of thing you need a little cover for. I heaved and cried and vomited up every dream and hope and expectation in my heart. When I heard myself saying what I was saying, I shook even more, terrified. It all seemed like much too much hope.

I said to Justin, while hyperventilating, “I don’t need all of this to happen. I’m totally fine with whatever happens. But I want it to, and I think God wants it to. I’m so scared to want it. But I’ve been scared to hope for a long time, and right now I think God’s hoping I’ll hope for more.”

I had to stop walking, because I couldn’t breathe.

A cloud of starlings filled the sky.

Justin put his hand on my shoulder and laughed, “This is the thrill of hope.”

a starling cloud, photo by Walter Baxter (Wikipedia)

I got a new Bible for Christmas. I lost mine recently, left it somewhere—a hotel room, an airplane, who knows. The new one is leather and smells alive. I read from it for the first time this morning—Isaiah. Promises spilled from every verse.

“Your light will shine in the darkness and your night will be like noonday” (58:10).

“You will be like a watered garden and like a spring whose water never runs dry” (58:11).

“The Lord will shine over you, and his glory will appear over you” (60:2).

“Then you will see and be radiant, and your heart will tremble and rejoice, because the riches of the sea will become yours” (60:5).

“Violence will never again be heard of in your land” (60:18).

“The Lord will be your everlasting light” (60:19).

“The days of your sorrow will be over” (60:20).

“You will see, you will rejoice, and you will flourish like grass” (66:14).

It sounds a little bit like Milele.

But it’s not a dream.

Someday we’ll go. Someday He’ll come.

These promises were first delivered to Israel during a siege. I’m sure they felt ridiculous, like a pipe dream, as the city fell and Israel’s sons and daughters were marched off to Babylon.

Maybe they feel ridiculous to you as you barely scrape by, as you carry the weight of your child’s rebellion or your mother’s disease or your own shame.

Or maybe the promises are too thrilling, too good to believe because you might find out they’re untrue. Maybe you’re imagining a hurricane to help you sleep.

All I can say is what I think Isaiah’s saying to Israel: God’s promises are real. Hold on. Don’t hit the brakes.

It’s okay if you feel like you might throw up. That’s just the thrill of hope.

-JL

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Short Things to Read this Week:

In case you missed it, I wrote a piece for Christianity Today called “All My People Died at Christmas”—it’s about what it looks like to experience the presence of God. Thanks to everybody who eagerly shared it—it was trending on the site all last week!
I read THIS article by Bonnie Kristian aloud to my family on Christmas Day. It’s an anthem.

I’ll surely write more about this in the coming weeks, but I’m still reeling from reading THIS article in The Cut. I deeply appreciate the Christian perspective that drove the author to question emerging modern viewpoints.
4. And finally, if you haven’t yet read The Alchemist (a little fable of a book that has my family all fired up about living our “personal legends”), might I recommend the audiobook read by Jeremy Irons available on Spotify. It’s four hours of perfection.