Hope: It Is The Middle That Counts The Most

I have been contemplating what it means to be “hopeful” the last few days. Where does hope dwell? How does one accumulate more hope? This stems from a wedding I attended last week. Two of my spouse’s former students married each other, and it was a place where hope felt palpable in the air.

During the ceremony, the mother of the groom read 1 Corinthians 13 in Spanish. Spanish is not my first language, so I had to pay careful attention to understand what was being said. This caused me to fixate on terms and ideas throughout the passage rather than trying to translate word for word in my mind. The entire chapter is a description of the characteristics of love. The last line says, “and now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love” (vs. 13). 

Yah, yah, love is the greatest, we all get that. But it was the part about hope that stood out to me. Hope abides together with faith and love. To abide means “to accept or act according to a law” (Oxford English Dictionary). This trio is intertwined, even though love is the one that is elevated. How does hope work in tandem with faith and love? What else can we learn from hope?

According to vs. 7, love “hopes all things.” There is a confidence to hope, a belief that things will work out, possibly even better than we imagine. Have you seen the movie “Hope Floats”? It is a 1998 movie with Sandra Bullock and Harry Connick Jr. Sandra Bullock's character (Birdee Pruitt) faces a series of obstacles that require her to move back in with her mother. Her life was relatively obstacle free up until this point, and she has a difficult time facing her new reality. Her mindset evolves throughout the film and so does her capacity to be hopeful. 

Toward the end of the movie, she remembers what her mom used to say: “Beginnings are scary, endings are usually sad, but it’s the middle that counts the most. Try to remember that when you find yourself at a new beginning. Just give hope a chance to float up. And it will.”

Hope is in the middle in 1 Corinthians 13 (faith, hope, and love). We need faith and love; the three are infused. But, it is the middle that counts in the day-to-day challenges.

Where are you right now? Are you at a beginning? Or perhaps, you are at an ending. Lately, I have been sandwiched right in the middle, just trying to give hope a chance to float up. Romans 8:25 says, “But if we have hope for what we do not see, we will wait for it with patience.” I am choosing to remain hopeful in the middle because patience is tiresome. My hope stems from the recognition that the middle counts the most.

Let us know in the comments where you are at: beginning, middle or end?

                                                                By, Jennifer Metten Pantoja