Hope Fulfilled

     With nearly three months of winter vacation on our obscure island, I decided to tackle some Russian literature that I'd never before had the time or courage to read. I halfway expected it to be a disappointment and gave myself freedom to quit at any point that I found it dull. Instead, I discovered something magical and overall magnificent in these works. While I knew nothing of Russian culture at the start, and not much about its history, I had an instant connection with the characters that transcended time and culture affirming the truth that people, no matter what their race or language, are inherently similar. Not only that, but I was reminded anew that everyone’s chief struggle springs from alienation from God and spills out into broken relationships, finances, health and ultimately broken dreams.
     Reading Brothers Karamazov was a raw experience for me as I peered into the deep recesses of Dostoevsky’s characters, almost with a sense of shame at seeing the baseness of their inner turmoil as they struggled with good and evil. More than anything, I saw myself in many of his characters and could relate on a personal level with them as they anguished over past sins, temptation to repeat them and a longing for life to be different than it actually was.
     While at times I became weighed down by the darkness, he managed to weave hope into the story so that no matter how despairing the circumstances, redemption shone over the horizon --- calling both the characters and me to persevere. In reading the final words I experienced a joy that I’d never had before from reading literature. It was a kind of cleansing that left me refreshed and renewed. Journeying with these real and very broken people though their emotional and psychological wrestling enabled me to pull out my own hidden struggles without the sense of shame I’d had in the past. Bringing them afresh before God and realizing that, unlike many of them, mine had been forever forgiven and washed away made me feel fully alive.
     More than anything, Dostoevsky reminded me that we serve a God of hope. Yes, we’re fallen and desire to do so much that’s contrary to God’s will that we’re often in a state of discontent. To complicate matters, everyone around us has the same bent toward evil, apart from God’s Spirit, so that their sin affects us in ways we often don’t deserve. Simultaneously, creation itself is growing old and wearing out, disappointing us with its inability to deliver a wellspring of youth and beauty, health and healing. But still hope remains – hope that Christ has secured our redemption and our future with him, hope that God is at work in our lives at this moment molding and shaping us into his image, hope that he is guiding and guarding us through the storms and conflicts, hope that we will not live in a broken world forever, but that there will come a day, very soon, when we will be eternally reconciled with him in body and spirit, where we’ll cease struggling with anger, bitterness, hatred, discord, disappointment, envy or anything else. We will dwell in perfect peace, perfect righteousness, and perfect unity with both God and his people. These days on earth will be but a distant memory as we stand in awe of all that God accomplished in and through us on this journey. Every tear will be gone; there will be no regrets -- only joy and rejoicing. Our story, replete with inner struggles as well as hope, much like Dostoevsky’s characters, will end in complete, unimaginable victory with the closing line -- Hope has been fulfilled.