God Gives Us Faith, Hope, and Love

Colleen Mallette discusses the hope given to us by God that helps us persevere through tough times.

The Advent season is over. Christmas Day has come and gone. Now we are fresh into a brand-new year. The chaos, busyness, anxiety, and possibly loneliness of the holidays have subsided, but the emotions and aftermath continue on.

Ideally, we would love to hang onto the good aspects of the holidays and let go of the stressful ones. The peace, joy and love from God and others would be the primary feelings we hopefully felt and would want to linger on in our new year. The reminder that God loves us so much that He sent His only begotten Son to earth to save us and give us eternal life is wonderful and comforting. His humble birth is also a reminder to us to live in humility and selflessness year-round, not just on Christmas Day.

If it is difficult to let go of any hurts or anxiety or loneliness experienced during this season, take it to God in prayer. Seek out a priest or mentor to discuss it and be reassured. Most of all, remember God’s love for you and His desire for your happiness.

God knew we would have struggles on earth and that being a follower of Jesus would not take those away. But He also gave us His Word to turn to in times of trouble, our Church and sacraments to give us grace, and the ability to seek Him constantly in our prayerful relationship.

So faith, hope, love remain, these three; but the greatest of these is love. (1 Corinthians 13:13)

These three things are the top virtues a Christian strives to live out. The faith we have in Jesus and our salvation makes life bearable even in the toughest of times. This faith then gives us the hope to get through each day and the desire to treat ourselves and others with love.

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Hope especially gives us the ability to forge ahead in this tough journey of life. It gives us the fortitude to persevere knowing even if we can't improve things on our own God is always in control.

When things don’t seem to be going the way we want, we Christians can hope that God knows better than we do what we need. When someone we love gets a negative diagnosis, we have hope that God cares and will provide. When we are faced with challenging circumstances we have hope that God hears our prayers and will give us the strength and courage to face them.

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Faith gives us the hope to get through each day and the desire to treat ourselves and others with love. #CatholicMom

I recently attended a funeral, and there were hardly any tears because the church was full of Christians. As such, there was the hope for eternal salvation for the deceased which brings such peace to those loved ones left behind. I can’t imagine how people deal with death who don’t believe in Heaven and the glorious life eternal with God!

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who in his great mercy gave us a new birth to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you who by the power of God are safeguarded through faith, to a salvation that is ready to be revealed in the final time. In this you rejoice. (1 Peter 1:3-6)

That is so poignant and summarizes our Christian beliefs that we have so much to hope for—thanks to Jesus. As the verse says, it is a living hope, an active, ongoing, vibrant positive attitude to aid us in getting through life. This hope will be with us as we plunge into this new year and beyond.

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