RECOVERING HOPE TO GRADUATE
When Lansing, MI, high school senior Aniyah Malone crossed this stage this month to receive her diploma, it was a come-from-behind victory. By her sophomore year, she’d fallen behind in her classes, and the chances of graduating with her peers was fading fast. “I’d lost all hope,” Malone said. But her mother didn’t waver: “I never doubted she would graduate,” she said. “It took a lot of blood, sweat and tears to get there but I knew she would.” Malone caught up through a credit recovery program that she could work on during off hours and weekends. “I even told my friends, if they did this, they could get to where I was,” she said. “They just needed to put in the work. . . . I feel like if I could do it, anyone could do it.”
RECOVERING HOPE IN GOD
In today’s text, we see the prophet Jeremiah go from an extreme low, in which his hope in God has been all but extinguished, to a place of recovered faith that gives us one of our most enduring expressions of hope in God’s faithfulness. To call to mind God’s compassions, even in the midst of heartbreaking sorrow, is an act of great spiritual maturity.
Questions
- When have you regained hope when it had been almost gone?
- What’s the lowest despair you’ve been in, and how might God have met you there?
- How have you seen God’s compassions renewed?
