Pandora's Missed Hope

By Nancy Turley

 We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure.

                                                                                                         Hebrews 6:19

You keep track of all my sorrows.
You have collected all my tears in your bottle,

You have recorded each one in your book.

                                                                         Psalms 56:8

For I know the plans that I have for you...to give you a future and a hope.
                                                                                                                               Jeremiah 29:11


Recently I learned something that had escaped me in my education in mythology. Did you know that after all the evil elements of the world flew out of Pandora’s “box” that what was left in the box was Hope?

In this myth, Pandora, the first woman in Greek mythology, had many qualities, but the one we associate most with her is her curious nature. Though she was instructed not to open the box given to her, the desire to know more needed to be satisfied.

Apparently many versions of this myth have appeared through the years, but in some versions, Hope did come out. So often we use this expression, “it’s like opening Pandora’s box” in the hesitancy to investigate something we may need to because we are afraid of what we might find out. Or more so, we have started to investigate, and we find even more problems and what we perceive as negative answers.  Regardless of the hard realities of life that really are present, the beauty of God is that He offers us hope when we are at the bottom.

Could it be that we also are shutting the box too quickly on hope that would come forth after we are brave enough to keep searching? Or, that we at least find a “twist” to the end of story that allows hope to keep us anchored?

I have too often opened my own "box" of tarnished thoughts, and thus, because I dwelled on them, fear took root and hope was squelched. I ponder my own yet unanswered prayers or my lack of grasp on the “whys” of life, and the thoughts that so spin off with a negative twist—when I need to grasp on to the hope that is my anchor at the bottom of God’s box."

How different it might have been if the story of Pandora ended something like: "But Pandora endured and found HOPE in the end." We might then think of the positive inference of Pandora opening her box. and associate it with hope for the future. I hold on to my life verse that has so encouraged me over and over in Jeremiah 29:11 - "For I know the plans that I have for you...to give you a future and a hope." God has proven his faithfulness to this verse very specifically for me over and over. I still wonder about my future--about my "golden years" to come...but I trust even then He has a plan for good while I am yet living.

In my research I learned that Pandora's box was actually a jar.  I found this intriguing because God keeps a jar for us that He designed to bottle our tears. Our Creator is a God who feels with us those stings of heartaches and cares with such a depth of love, that He created us with a physical ability to cry and then he saves those tears. And it says in Psalms, He records them in his book. Our God is a journaler for us!

My thoughts go to a dear friend who is mourning the loss of her husband way too early. I ponder the verse that says,
"Weeping endures for a night, but joy comes in the morning."
When will her morning of joy come? I can't project or know, but I know that her tears, collected in God's jar, are stored in a place of love. And I know that in her grief, her anchor of hope in the Lord is firm and secure.