Optimism from a pessimist

Rev. Valerie Robideaux

I actually laughed out loud when I read Scot McKnight’s title for Day 32 of 40 Days Living the Jesus Creed. “The Optimism of Love.” I find it rather ironic, or perhaps perfectly divinely inspired, that I was (randomly?) chosen to blog on “The Optimism of Love.” Those who know me can attest that I am rather quick to complain, roll my big brown eyes, and give painfully honest answers to difficult questions. Over dinner with a friend, she asked about pregnancy and motherhood. My response, “ah! It is so hard!” After my tell all of pregnancy woes and baby blues, I did make mention of the splendid aspects of each as well. Small mention.

It is not that I do not believe in optimism or expressing the joys in life, I just find it really challenging to speak about them. The good is almost too private for me, while I am all too quick to make public life’s difficulties. Within me is actually a deep well of emotion, but to share that is too risky. So, I skillfully and strategically side with pessimism as a defense mechanism.

I am grateful for McKnight’s emphasis on the less familiar optimism of love found in scripture. “It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.” 1 Corinthians 13:7. McKnight states that the optimism of love is not “thinking positively only good things will happen. The optimism that comes from a Jesus Creed kind of love becomes optimistic because it believes and hopes in God” (McKnight, 163-64).

“It believes and hopes in God.” Loving God, loving self, and loving others does not require a constant cheery outlook on life. It does not ask for cliché and simple answers to life’s tough questions. It requires honest, purposeful and intentional living steeped in believing and placing hope in God’s promises of a new creation.

When I found myself in a deep postpartum depression, I realized no one really shared with me the painful, life changing, guilt-producing realities of motherhood. I recently received a paper from a student expressing irritation with pre-packaged theological answers like “everything happens for a reason.” Sometimes there is no “optimistic” answer to our tragedies. There is an honest, purposeful, and intentional response that can only come from optimism in love. “I don’t know, but I choose to believe and hope in God. And I have experienced God’s transformative work through the painful moments of my own life.”

God transforms nothing into something. God transforms pain into passion and death into new life. God is a God that calls for a resurrection, not easy and pleasing answers to our lives. Believing and hoping in that is an optimism this pessimist can relate to.