Check It Out: Wishing you a new year filled with hope
By Joan Janzen
Children love the Christmas season and are filled with optimism, joy and hope. Here are a few requests parents heard their children pray over the years.
Please help me never to go to the dentist. Bless me so I can eat apples without my front teeth. Please help us to have pancakes in the morning. I pray the girls won’t try to kiss me at recess tomorrow.
While children are hopeful their requests will be answered, it’s extremely easy for adults to focus on circumstances and lose hope.
It has been said that hope does in our hearts what seeds do in the earth, and I can personally attest to the strength of a seed. Although I possess little expertise when it comes to plants, I am capable of pouring water into pots. So, for weeks, I diligently watered my son and daughter-in-law’s plants while they were gone for a month.
I didn’t want any plant to die on my watch, so I diligently watered every pot that contained dirt, including a planter with one lonely dried-up stalk sticking out of the dirt. I continued my watering duties until a few days before they returned home.
After their arrival, I was very surprised when my daughter-in-law sent me a photo of a plant bearing beautiful, huge, colourful blooms. The dried-up stalk had transformed into an amazing flower-bearing plant. My daughter-in-law thought the plant was dead and did not expect me to water it.
It definitely wasn’t my plant expertise that caused the plant to bloom; it was the water that brought it back to life. However, the plant needed someone willing to apply the water; in this case, it happened to be me.
We’ve all experienced circumstances that are beyond our control and cause us to lose hope. It could be a friend who is bitter and offended and we find ourselves unable to change hearts. Or it could be a loved one who is struggling with an addiction, and we’re not sure how we can help.
What we can do is faithfully apply love and prayer to what may appear to be a hopeless situation. If a dried-up stalk can bear beautiful blooms, how much more is a transformed life capable of producing?
Without hope, life is sterile and unfruitful, dreams won’t be conceived, and destinies won’t be realized. Hope is essential because it is the launch pad to new beginnings. It’s an incubator where faith is birthed. If there is no hope for the future, there will be no faith to face it, let alone build it.
Where does hope come from? Do we place our hope in the government? That’s not likely as we read Christie Freeland’s letter of resignation saying “They (Canadians) know when we are working for them, and they equally know when we are focused on ourselves”. It’s a sad day when politicians focus on themselves and their party, ignore a $62 billion deficit while giving Canadians “costly political gimmicks” as Freeland described them.
Can we put our hope in the media? As I listened to John Gormley being interviewed by the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, I realized that’s not likely either. He was the host of the John Gormley Show for 25 years and also enjoyed a short stint in politics.
“My political career was very short because of ill health. My supporters got sick of me,” John laughed.
He grew up in an era when five components were required for journalists: integrity, consistency, honesty, authenticity, and transparency. “Without trust, you don’t have an audience. Without an audience, you don’t have revenue, and without revenue, you don’t have a future,” John said.
He spoke to 30,000 guests over 25 years. He said the most interesting guests shared their inspiring and courageous stories. He recalled his most courageous guest was a mom from Alberta who had donated her teenager’s organs after a tragic and fatal accident. However he couldn’t remember her name.
This past week, a woman of great courage spoke on social media about a cyclone that struck last week and destroyed or damaged 95 percent of all structures in Mozambique. Heidi Baker has spent the past 30 years in Mozambique feeding the hungry and helping to build homes, schools, and a university that just received accreditation after eight years of negotiations.
“People are traumatized but they stay full of hope in the midst of chaos,” she said. During her 30 years serving the people there, she’s been through multiple storms, wars, insurgencies, and chaos.
She was asked how she stays full of hope in the midst of chaos?
“You weep with those who weep, but we fix our eyes on Jesus, and the love of God rises up in each one of us,” Heidi replied.
As we celebrate Christmas and usher in 2025, I wish you a Merry Christmas and a New Year filled with hope for the future.
“May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope.” Romans 15:13