all i hope

 a new entry in an on-going faith journal

Easter of 2026, I am walking the Christian walk. I am teaching my children to memorize Scripture. I am in a women’s Bible study group. I am listening to Christian music while I make dinner, reading the Bible to the kids at lunch, walking through the practices of Easter Week with them, weeping still at the crucifixion. 

And still I don’t know that I believe it. 

My heart longs for it all, for the story, the power, the mystery, the joy, the victory. 

I still read the stories of the gospels and feel like I was there, feel like I know every character personally. 

Nate has found a new way to believe, and he is so excited by it. I am so happy for him, but I feel so many emotions toward his journey compared with mine. Jealousy, wondering why the arguments that compel him aren’t compelling me, feeling left behind and missing out on what I have known to be so beautiful before. 

I dig into the issue of evil and suffering, as I feel like that’s where I run into a block with God. Nate gives me resources. I listen to some of the best minds of Christianity today, genuinely hoping that the light bulb will go on, that suddenly I’ll see it all from an angle that allows me to trust God again. And each time the argument falls short for me. I wonder if I am asking too much. But I also know he said, Ask. 

Strangely enough, out of all of it - God, the Bible, Jesus, church, etc. - the part that I probably find most believable is the life, teachings, death, and resurrection of Jesus. Even the resurrection, yes. While the gospels are not perfect, I do see signs of historical reliability and at least an attempt at eyewitness testimony. And I do see a group of Jews radically transformed with boldness claiming a risen Messiah. I don’t see any way around those facts that doesn’t portray the early Christians as either stupid or massively deceived, and the evidence for either of those options doesn’t add up for me. 

So Easter finds me in a peculiar place. Feeling both the deep familiarity of the story, and also a distance as I wrestle with not understanding what it means. Even if I believe in a resurrection, I don’t know that it means Jesus is God, or that death is defeated, or that we have hope. 

And yet, hope. 

I feel a flicker of it. 

I have nothing but hope. 

Faith, I cannot say I have. Trust, none. But hope, all I have is hope. 

Hope that there is a God that can somehow right all that is wrong, and make sense of why he has not done it yet. 

Hope that a man as beautiful as Jesus cannot have been completely misguided. 

Hope that the God who heard my heart’s devoted prayers for years is perhaps still there, still leading me even though I’ve felt alone. 

Hope that maybe when, in the height of faith, I asked God to do whatever it takes, to have his way, to take everything away and give me himself - maybe this was somehow the answer to those prayers. I thought I was surrendering my life, my comfort, my people, my reputation. But maybe what I was dependent on more than any of that was the felt presence of God. Maybe when that feeling disappeared, that was the beginning of a deeper journey, a darker night than I thought was possible. Maybe. 

But even while I open up my Bible and choke up to worship songs in the car and wash my children’s feet to be like Jesus, I cannot bring myself to pray. 

I have a hope, barely the size of a grain of sand. I hold it in the palm of my hand, openhanded, and wait.

Wait.

The Hebrew word for “wait,” yachal, is the same word for “hope.”