Hope ever after

Always wearing her easily broken heart on her sleeve, Marianne Dashwood has had enough of her sensible sister, Elinor. And in common Marianne fashion, she lets Elinor have it. “Always resignation and acceptance. Always prudence and honor and duty. Elinor, where is your heart?” 

To which steadfast and long-suffering Elinor finally responds in kind:  “What do you know of my heart? What do you know of anything but your own suffering? For weeks, Marianne, I’ve had this pressing on me without being at liberty to speak of it to a single creature. It was forced on me by the very person whose prior claims ruined all of my hopes. I have endured her exultations again and again whilst knowing myself to be divided from Edward forever. Believe me, Marianne, had I not been bound to silence I could have provided proof enough of a broken heart, even for you.”

If you’re a Jane Austen fan, you may recall that scene from Ang Lee’s 1995 version of Sense and Sensibility. And if you’re like me, you cheered for dutiful Elinor finally being able to speak her mind. About a month ago, the actress who played Elinor, Dame Emma Thompson, was in the news for a comment she made about romantic love. 

“It’s philosophically helpful and uplifting to remember that romantic love is a myth and quite dangerous. We really do have to take it with a massive pinch of salt. To think sensibly about love and the way it can grow is essential,” she said. 

It sounded quite like something Elinor herself would have said, so it got my attention. As someone who once fancied herself Marianne in my younger years, I have aged into Elinor. Oh, I still believe in love. I just believe the way our culture teaches it is flawed. 

I always appreciated 1 Peter 3:3-5, which says, Your beauty should not come from outward adornment, such as elaborate hairstyles and the wearing of gold jewelry or fine clothes. Rather, it should be that of your inner self, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is of great worth in God’s sight. For this is the way the holy women of the past who put their hope in God used to adorn themselves. They submitted themselves to their husbands. . . .

But in my Marianne phase, where I was innocent and young and quite naive, I loved it because it gave me beauty advice to which I could aspire. It gave me a standard that was higher than what the world offered. It reminded me that we humans are often concerned with our outward appearances, but God looks at the heart (1 Samuel 16:7).

However, studying it again in my Elinor phase, as a middle-aged woman, I was struck more by verse 5, where it tells us that the holy women of the past put their hope in God. Not in their physical beauty, which we all know to be fickle and fleeting, but God. Not even in their husbands, as wonderful as they may have been, but in God. They were able to submit to their husbands, to entrust themselves to their husbands – as women in that society had little standing on their own – because ultimately, their hope was in God.

This concept of putting our hope in God is woven throughout the Bible. Here are just a few examples:

Do any of the worthless idols of the nations bring rain? Do the skies themselves send down showers? No, it is you, Lord our God. Therefore our hope is in you, for you are the one who does all of this (Jeremiah 14:22).

But as for me, I watch in hope for the Lord, I wait for God my Savior; my God will hear me (Micah 7:7).

Why, my soul, are you downcast? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God (Psalm 42:5).

Guide me in your truth and teach me, for you are God my Savior, and my hope is in you all day long (Psalm 25:5).

We all put our hope in something – many things, even. And sometimes, this concept of romantic love can become an ideal for us. We may find that we even put our hope in it. We expect a relationship or a marriage to fulfill our every single desire. And when it doesn’t? Like Marianne, we’re heartbroken. Who wants to live in a world without happily ever afters?

Romantic love is real, but it’s also hard work. It’s learning, growing, apologizing, forgiving, giving and taking. Author Paul David Tripp explains:  “God is using the difficulties of the here and now to transform you, that is, to rescue you from you. And because he loves you, he will willingly interrupt or compromise your momentary happiness in order to accomplish one more step in the process of rescue and transformation, which he is unshakably committed to.”

What our culture gets wrong about romantic love is that it’s not all about us. Love – life, even – is not about making us happy. It’s about much more than that. I have to use another quote from Paul David Tripp here because it’s my absolute favorite and so applicable:  “None of us gets our dream in the way that we dreamt it, because none of us is writing our own story. God, in his love, writes a better story than we could ever write for ourselves. He has a better dream than the one we can conceive. He knows much better than we do what is best for us. He will take us places that we never intended to go because, in doing so, we become more of what he re-created us in Christ to be.”

This is good news! For just as the women of the past put their hope in God, entrusted their love lives, their beauty, their very safety to God, so can we. We may have access to a lot more beauty products these days, but our God is the same. 

We wait in hope for the Lord; he is our help and our shield. In him our hearts rejoice, for we trust in his holy name. May your unfailing love be with us, Lord, even as we put our hope in you (Psalm 33:20-22).

Single? Put your hope in God. Married? Put your hope in God. Sad? Put your hope in God. Happy? Put your hope in God. 

The answer is the same, whether you’re a beautiful teenager who identifies more with the romantic ideals of Marianne or a middle-aged mom who finds herself more practical-minded as the years go by. Hope in God. Place your hope ultimately in Him. 

Don’t put your trust in your beauty or your youth or your own strength or ambitions. Because beauty fades. Ideals change. Life throws us surprises sometimes. We aren’t writing our own stories.  But we can put our hope in the One who is. He is our hope ever after.