Indeed, one week ago, as the new year dawned, I felt hopeful. The vaccines are on their way. Maybe this long nightmare will end before too long.

How could you not be optimistic that 2021 would be an improvement over 2020?

Now, just seven days in, this year is looking pretty hopeless. We lose more hope with each day.

• The death toll across the country and world from Covid keeps climbing.
• Every day this year, one of my friends has lost a parent due to old age.
• We’re having to make tough decisions about my own parents’ care as they become more dependent.
• On a trivial note, our upstairs bathroom flooded. It didn’t feel trivial when we were on our knees at 3:00 a.m. mopping up water as it overflowed and gushed through the kitchen ceiling, pouring out our light fixtures above the stove. We’ll have a few repair bills before it’s all fixed.
• And then, this week happened. The insurrection at the Capitol. There are no words, only deep, deep sadness.

Hope? Are you kidding? Yes, we need hope, but not some Pollyanna kind of hope. If I was picking a word that might be useful, I’d pick Peace.

Our world desperately needs peace. We are in turmoil. Division. Hatred. Sickness. Death. Some pretend to do what they do in the name of Jesus. Someone at the Capitol flew a flag with the word “Jesus” printed on it.

I felt sick. This isn’t the Jesus I know. This is the opposite of Jesus; this is the work of the enemy of our souls. The one who is reveling in all this chaos right now.

The Jesus I know loves us–every single person on the planet. He said, “Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world gives, give I to you” (John 14:27).

Where is that peace now?

My favorite Corrie ten Boom once wrote:

If you look at the world, you’ll be distressed.

If you look within, you’ll be depressed.

If you look at God you’ll be at rest.

I’m trying to look at God for my rest. I do believe that he’s the only one who can bring peace. And I guess it’s because of that certainty I feel that I actually can have a smidgeon of hope.

God alone can bring peace, but he brings it through us. People. People who stop pointing the finger and blaming the “other” side. People who stop adding to the noise. People who reach out in love.

St. Francis of Assisi said it best:

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace,
Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
Where there is injury, pardon;
Where there is doubt, faith;
Where there is despair, hope;
Where there is darkness, light;
Where there is sadness, joy;

O Divine Master,
Grant that I may not so much seek
To be consoled as to console;
To be understood as to understand;
To be loved as to love.

For it is in giving that we receive;
It is in pardoning that we are pardoned;
And it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.

Lord, have mercy on us!