IF: Propogate

Just a quick sketch with a little bit of Photoshop tweaking for this week's Illustration Friday. I wasn't a huge fan of the topic....but I've been missing a lot of the latest IF challenges because of that excuse! The truth is I've been busy...it's hard to sit and be creative when there a bunch of other things engaging your heart and your world.


I'm noticing as I look around my little world that hope is under attack. So many people I love are dealing with financial strain, tragic loss, horrific health problems, relationship conflict and the depressing thought that the cycle might never end. It creates in me a shocked sadness...a profound questioning of my Creator who sees all and knows all. So I retreat. I cry. I become Eeyore for a little while. And then I get defiant.


I was listening to a discussion recently about foster care and kids in custody of the state. The social worker in charge was discussing one scenario with an angry teenage boy. She said with finality "This teen will never be whole. He will never be able to have a normal life." It was as if the air was sucked out of the room. There was just silence where there used to be warm hearts that had hope for change. Until finally, one man spoke up and said, "I refuse to believe you." I have been thinking a lot lately about what it takes to do hard things in this life. One thing comes to mind. Defiant love. I understand that sugarcoating doesn't help anyone, that we live in reality not fantasy...that life is hard. But let's not deaden our souls to the very thing that makes us human...the HOPE of change. The quest for healing. The joy of sacrificial love.

I am usually nice and acommodating in my everyday life. But I've decided, try to take away my hope....and you'll be met with stubborn defiance.



Let's propagate hope.


"Nothing that is worth doing can be achieved in our lifetime; therefore we must be saved by hope; Nothing which is true or beautiful or good makes complete sense in any immediate context of history; therefore we must be saved by faith. Nothing we do, however virtuous, can be accomplished alone; therefore we must be saved by love." Reinhold Niebuhr