Three Passions

Three passions, love, faith and hope, which lead me abruptly high in the sky near God’s side, and sometimes throw me down to the deep dungeon of hell, an invisible cage inside my mind, were what brought me here. They are what keep me alive sometimes happy, also, sometimes melancholy, but never letting me give up.

Love it was everywhere in my life. I have been loved, l also have loved. It was very first and important lesson I had, ever since I was born. I was amazed at its power, and also thought it would be the only thing we needed to be here. But love, it was never full, was never empty, either. I learnt nothing in love as I didn’t mean to learn anything out of it. I never understood what it truly meant even when I loved, and it often discouraged me.

Faith, as discouraging as love is, wasn’t able to give me much. While surging in the daily waves, faith would hold me still. But it sometimes caused even greater waves that would swallow me up and take me down to the ocean floor, where nothing can be seen. To see is to believe, they say. When even not all things I see can be easily believed, how will I expect myself to believe anything in the darkness? When the waves of worries swallowed me and locked me in the cage of mind, what have faith done for me?

Love and Faith, which would always fill me and empty me again, could never be fully trusted. They would protect me today but tomorrow, they would turn their back on me. But not hope, it would never turn its back on me.

Hope, which wasn’t as deep as love, is not a shield that would protect me most of the time like faith, but rather it gave me another ‘eye’. With the eye of home, I could see the true meaning of love, could see even when the waves swallowed me up and took me down into the darkness, and it enabled me to dream. It never turned its back on me. It may not have helped me sometimes, but never betrayed me as well, unlike broken love or faith. It filled what love couldn’t, enabled me to see what faith couldn’t show me, and let me dream of my next day.

God made every man with purpose. To fill the emptiness of love, to light the way of faith, to enable me to dream of tomorrow, that’s why He gave me Hope, along with Love and Faith.

by Joel Choi