REV. CARL A. TRAPANI
While dedicating the Truman Center for the Advancement of Peace, Harry S. Truman said, “Memories are short, and appetites for power and glory are insatiable. Old tyrants depart. New ones take their places.
Old differences are composed, new differences arise. Old allies become the foe. The recent enemy becomes the friend. It is all very baffling and trying — but -we cannot lose hope, we cannot despair. ”
Mr. Truman was saying that time changes things, that we have not known days like these before, that things are different now. Much of my ministry and counseling is based on reassuring people that things will get better. I am an optimist. I try to instill that hope into others. Without it, life is empty and dark. I believe that is why “you gotta have hope.”
“For we are saved by hope: but hope that is seen is not hope: for what a man seeth, why cloth he yet hope for? But if we hope for that we see not, then do we with patience wait for it” (Romans 8:24-25)
A study was done of concentration camp survivors. What were the common characteristics of those who did not succumb to disease and starvation in the camps? Victor Frankl was a living answer to that
question. He was a successful Viennese psychiatrist before the Nazis threw him into such a camp. “There is only one reason, ” he said in a speech, “why I am here today. What kept me alive was you. Others gave
up hope. I dreamed. I dreamed that someday I would be here, telling you how I, Victor Frankl, had survived the Nazi concentration camps. I’ve never been here before, I’ve never seen any of you before, I’ve never given this speech before. But in my dreams, in my dreams, I have stood before you and said these words a thousand times.”
A California woman wrote, “No matter how bad the pain is, it’s never so bad that suicide is the only answer. Suicide doesn’t end pain. It only lays it on the broken shoulders of the survivors.” And she ends her story. “By the way: to all the doctors, nurses and psychiatrists who forced me to live when I didn’t want to–thank you for keeping breath in my lungs and my heart beating and encouraging hope in me when I didn’t have any hope.”
–Newsweek, Feb. 7, 1983, p. 1
HOPE ASSURES US:
We will be reunited with
loved ones who have died
We will see Jesus
We will be given a new body
As Christians we have a reason to smile. We have hope in Jesus Christ. Although things may be dark today, tomorrow the sun will shine. Although we may be ill, broke, or oppressed today, tomorrow we hope to
be well, rich, and victorious – through Jesus Christ who is the reason for our hope! I’ll conclude with one of my favorite hope-building poems. Two frogs fell into a deep cream bowl, One was an optimistic soul But the other took the gloomy view, “I shall drown he cried, “and so will you.” So with a last despairing cry, He closed his eyes and said, “Good-bye.” But the other frog, with a merry grin, Said, “I can’t get out, but I won’t give in! I’ll swim around till my strength is spent. For having tried, I’ll die content.” Bravely he swam until it would seem His struggles began to churn the cream. On the top of the butter at last he stopped And out of the bowl he happily hopped. What is the moral? It’s easily found. If you can’t get out–keep swimming
around!
THE ABOVE MATERIAL WAS PUBLISHED BY THE WISCONSIN DISTRICT NEWS 2000, PAGE 11. THIS MATERIAL IS COPYRIGHTED AND MAY BE USED FOR STUDY & RESEARCH PURPOSES ONLY.
