"The LORD is my portion," says my soul, "therefore I will hope in him."
This line comes from a book called Lamentations — which is exactly what it sounds like, a book of grief. The writer isn't performing optimism. He's naming a portion, something that's actually his, in the middle of loss he doesn't pretend to minimize.
That's worth sitting with if you've ever felt like faith requires pretending things are fine when they're not. "My portion" isn't a denial of the wreckage around him — it's a decision about what he's still holding onto in spite of it. Hope, here, isn't naivety. It's a choice made by someone who has every reason not to make it.
You don't need your circumstances to improve before a line like this could mean anything to you. The writer didn't wait for that either. He just decided that whatever else was gone, this one thing — this portion — was still his to hope in.
If you've wondered whether hope can be honest instead of naive, this is a question worth sitting with a little longer.
A short video on this is coming soon — for now, read on.