Still Thinking About Hope...

(there will be no fluidity to this post because my heart feels anything but fluid in sorting this out)

Important background to catch before I dive in is the fact that in the past several months, my heart has been moved to search out hope like never before. In the process, my idea of the substance of hope has expanded so much that it doesn't look anything like what I would have thought it was a few years ago. A flighty, transient, soft-spoken wish? Hell no... For me, words like agony, aching, yearning and pain seem to grasp its substance better.

Childbirth: Always pain before a child is born.

As I encounter God's heart more - the deep desires of His heart for things like peace, justice, love; and match them up against the reality of this world and how these values are absent, my heart is left broken. The cost of these values is more than I can weigh. When the darkness and evil surmounts, as it seems to more and more, fighting for hope feels a foolish thing to do, let alone believing for change. Reality says, 'Jenna, don't you see how bad it is out there? Don't you see that every attempt to bring abounding good is thwarted? Why do you hang on to a thread of belief?'

The darkness itself hurts, but so does a heart of hope. I don't even think I can describe the tension of my heart: despair in the forbearance of hope, but also not wanting it any other way. What if all these deep desires were met this side of heaven... how much would I really hunger the presence of God fully revealed? Would the tastes that I've savoured - memories of the future - cause a hunger in my heart for more, and more? If all things that I desired were met here on earth, what would be the impetus of my life that would keep me going?
That would cause me to press on?
Desire all that is to come?