Reflection – Hope
and Despair
Paraphrased from Thomas Merton:
How close God is to us when we
come to a point in our lives
that we know and accept our
desperation
and cast our care entirely upon
Him.
Against all human expectation He
sustains us
when we need to be sustained,
helping us to do what seemed
impossible.
We learn to know Him … really know
Him …
not as we conjure Him in our
imaginative powers
- a presence in which we dress Him
in our own finery –
but in the emptiness of a hope
that may come close to despair.
For perfect hope
is achieved on the brink of
despair when,
instead of falling over the edge,
we find ourselves walking on the air.
Hope is always just about to turn
into despair,
but never does so,
for at the moment of supreme
crisis
God's power is suddenly made
perfect in our infirmity.
So we learn to expect
His mercy most calmly when all is
most dangerous,
to seek Him quietly in the face of
peril, certain that He cannot fail us.
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