Christians have every reason to have a positive outlook on life.  We are a people of hope. If we are to speak peace, live peace and be peace, the hope that underlies all of those must be there first.

Why is it then that I almost daily speak words full of harsh criticism, acerbic sarcasm, or even downright cynicism?  Like many of us, I often abandon my hope and replace it with whatever negative, defeating emotion the world happens to be dishing out that day.  

Hope is more than a feeling, more than a naive belief that “things will get better.”  To be called a “Pollyanna” in our world today is to be labeled as a simple-minded dreamer.  It is the ultimate put down spoken by the cynics, a way of dismissing hope out of hand.

But perhaps we would do well to take another look at what Pollyanna has to say to us.  The novel “Pollyanna” was written by Eleanor Hodgman Porter in 1913.  It became a bestseller overnight.  Though a coming-of-age story of an 11-year old orphan girl, it was really written for an adult audience.  Pollyanna’s parents who were missionaries have both died and she has come to live with her wealthy, stern and rather difficult Aunt Polly.  Pollyanna’s major personality characteristic is her uncanny and disarming way of finding something to be glad about in every conceivable situation.  That doesn’t mean that Pollyanna is never sad.  She cries just as any child or adult does when faced with frustration, pain, grief or overwhelming negative circumstances.  The difference is that eventually Pollyanna always plays “the Glad Game”, something her minister father taught her as a she was growing up as a motherless child.  He had learned to play it in the throes of overwhelming grief following his wife’s death.  While searching for words of comfort, he discovered that there were over 800 “rejoice and be glad” passages in the Bible, which gave him not just comfort, but encouragement to survive and even thrive in the face of discouragement and difficulty.  In the Pollyanna story, the Glad Game became the instrument of transformational change in the lives of those who played it.

Hope stems from the choice we make to pursue an alternative way of looking at the world as it is--to see options where the world sees none at all.  It is a way of understanding life that maximizes our strength to live in joy with the vicissitudes each day of life puts on our plates.

“People radiate what is in their hearts and minds,” Pollyanna’s author wrote.  If we want to radiate hope and a sense of the future God has in mind for us, then hope needs to take up residence in our hearts.  After all, we really do have the best to hope for!

“And he will destroy on this mountain
  the shroud that is cast over all peoples,
  the sheet that is spread over all nations;
8 he will swallow up death for ever.
Then the Lord God will wipe away the tears from all faces,
  and the disgrace of his people he will take away from all the earth,
  for the Lord has spoken.
9 It will be said on that day,
  Lo, this is our God; we have waited for him, so that he might save us.
  This is the Lord for whom we have waited;
  let us be glad and rejoice in his salvation.”
Isaiah 25:7-9