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No More Hope

Along with 4.1 billion people across the globe, I sat and watched the funeral of Queen Elizabeth II. As I watched, a poem by John Donne, former Dean of St Paul’s Cathedral in London, was sung. The poem was called ‘Our Last Awakening’ and in it Donne speaks of entering heaven and imagines what it might be like.

One of the lines of the poem says, there’ll be ‘no darkness or dazzling… no fears nor hopes’. This struck me. I’ve never thought of hope as one day being completed and therefore no longer necessary. In fact, the gift of hope is one so precious in humanity that those of us who, perhaps at times, have lost hope would never wish that experience on another human soul.

Yet the simple truth is this. Hope in all its power is but a glimpse of heaven. The word often used in Hebrew means ‘to wait’. It’s a glimpse from a gracious and kind God that one day we would be restored back into His glorious presence, fully and completely. Hope in God is so powerful; it is enough to guide us like a compass into the unknown; it is enough to sustain life itself. ‘… those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary; they will walk and not be faint.’ (Isaiah 40:31)

Imagine when that day finally comes, when we see what we have hoped for, and hope will be no more.

Written by LUCY WEIL