(I have learned this beautiful truth over time. It has taken some learning.)

Loss happens. Pain happens. No one, not even Christians, are exempt from pain. Hope didn’t fail. The version of hope I was clinging to no longer could survive what happened. Plan A did not work out. What was “supposed to” happen didn’t. Disappointment feels all sorts of emotions. Disappointment hurts in ways we carry for a long time.

Hanging on to Plan A is where the heart gets crushed. How many times have I prayed this? “God it has to happen this way.” “You told me it would happen this way.” “Your promises state it will happen this way.” Can’t you feel my disappointment?

Hope was never meant to be a fragile script we hand to God. Hope is something that can bend without breaking because hope is never rooted in outcomes, but in God who stays.

This is yachal hope.

Yachal is a Hebrew word for hope meaning “waiting with steady expectation, holding to hope while the outcome is still hidden.”

Hope is not a wish nor is it a prayer. Hope is not something that prefers tea and inspirational throw pillows. Hope has bloody fists. Yachal is that.

When the Hebrew Scriptures uses this word, the writers are describing a hope that digs in. It carries weight. It leans forward instead of fading back. Yachal shows up when someone refuses to detach from God even when the situation verges on disappointment.

You will find yachal used 42 times in the Old Testament, 22 times in the Psalms alone. No wonder I like the Psalms so much.

You will find yachal in these verses.

• Psalm 130:5 – I am counting on the Lord; yes, I am counting on him. I have put my hope in his word.

• Job 13:15 – God might kill me, but I have no other hope. I am going to argue my case with him.

• Psalm 38:15 – For I am waiting for you, O Lord. You must answer for me, O Lord my God.

(You don’t see the word hope in that psalm but you do feel the hope that is waiting with steady expectation, right?)

Hope is not passive. Yachal carries the sense of bracing yourself for the moment God moves, holding steady while life pushes hard against you. You’re not pretending the storm isn’t real. You’re staying connected to the One who has already proven himself reliable. This is our bloody fists.

This is from “my Hebrew teacher,” Diane Ferreira. She can be your Hebrew teacher too because she writes on Substack at https://shessoscripture.com/. I learn from most every post she writes. She speaks to my Bible nerd self.

These words are from her:

“Biblical hope is shaped by memory. Yachal doesn’t grow from personality strength. It grows from remembering the God who has carried you through too many things to count. Scripture never asks you to conjure hope out of thin air. It asks you to anchor your hope in a God who has already acted, already delivered, already shown His hand.

“Hope like this has history attached to it. It doesn’t need everything to make sense before it settles. It remembers who God is, and that memory keeps you steady in ways you can’t always explain.

“If you have ever whispered a prayer through tears and stayed connected to God anyway, you already understand this word far better than you think.” –Diane Ferreira, https://shessoscripture.com/p/meaning-of-yachal-in-the-bible

I have learned yachal hope from my life. My life is a story of getting my heart smashed and the many times I have chosen to get up. God has carried me through too many things to count.

Loss did not take my hope. Disappointment did not take my soul. Each time I got out of bed (some days it was eventually), it wasn’t because I was strong, it was because I had learned that God had already proven himself faithful too many times to ignore. Yachal hope has history attached to it. Yachal hope is not naïve. It carries scars. It remembers. And knowing that God remembers has steadied me when nothing else could.

I’m choosing to believe that God will redeem every bit of this painful mess. This is my hope.