22nd November 2024

If I give you a flavour of a Christian Aid email I received this week, maybe it’ll whet your appetite to read the whole article (Why I struggle with hope – Christian Aid)?

Campaigner Jess Hall reflects on how heavy one’s heart can be, watching terrible stories of injustice playing out across the world. It can be hard to hold out hope for the future and even harder to know how we might make a difference.

Even harder perhaps than seeing the pain and suffering in the world, is realising that we’re not just passive observers, but part of a system that contributes to some of the problems. However, even in the midst of such awful events, throughout history, there have also been people recognising the potential to change things. Such thoughts lead to conversations and actions and coalesce into movements for change.

We look back at the Berlin Wall coming down, at the end of Apartheid in South Africa and too easily choose to forget the struggle that went before the ultimate success. The success to come can often not be glimpsed until it is finally upon you.

Jess writes that she thinks hope and the struggle can be held together, just as faith and doubt can be. “This is real hope, gritty hope, hope found in the midst of struggle”.

“As Christians we are called to patient faithful acts of hope even in the worst of situations”.

Pain and suffering are all too real, but we also have a good and a just God, and so we cannot just accept that darkness wins. It maybe Friday – but Sunday’s coming.

Ruth Allen