The hope I didn't know I needed
This wasn't on my 2025 bingo card
This is going to read like an announcement that belongs on LinkedIn, but I wanted to share this joyful (belated) news and share some of the fruit that I’m already seeing from it. And fittingly, I get to share this today (June 1), the 59th World Day of Social Communications.
At the end of April, I received the good news that I was accepted into the Faith Communication in the Digital World cohort for 2025/2026, a “unique vocational training experience” for young, Catholic communications professionals from around the world. For 11 months, I will participate with other Catholic communicators from around the world in workshops, hands-on skills training, personal and spiritual formation — all with the intention of helping us grow in our careers and in our vocations as communicators.
This really is a once in a lifetime opportunity, one that I was not expecting at all when I started this year. And through this, it taught me a very important lesson on hope and gave me the hope that I didn’t know I needed.
Receiving this opportunity was really a surprise, but it also was a very profound way of God showing me that He can make anything happen if I simply abide. I had my own thoughts about the program, thinking about how cool it would be to participate and all the wonderful things that could come from it.
But I’m also a realist. I had no time, no money, and there was no way that I would get chosen when there were only a few spots available.
With the encouragement of my boss and a few close friends, I dug my heels in and put my application together. And I think through all of it, the real crux of what God was teaching me became apparent.
Initially, I approached this program with the following mindset: If you don’t try, you won’t get disappointed. You won’t get hurt if you don’t put yourself out there.
Meanwhile, God was showing me a different way: You should try and trust me for the outcome. Your outcomes are not my outcomes. And even if you try and you “fail”, trust that I have something better for you in store.
There’s a subtle difference here, one that I’ve spent a lifetime learning and still continue to learn.
For many things — whether it be unique opportunities, meeting new people, applying for jobs or even falling in love — I was taking a sledgehammer to the situation and tried to come off as cool and stoic. And maybe I had good reason to, because I had been disappointed before. I think we all have had those experiences where we put our whole heart and soul and energy into something or someone, only to be let down, hurt, or cheated on.
I started 2025 with a lot of concrete around my heart. I’m not ready to say that I was hopeless, but maybe I should take a sledgehammer to that too and admit I probably was. I was tired, burnt out, and losing hope in a lot of things. Ironic, considering that this year was also declared a Jubilee of Hope in the Catholic Church.
This application process, as well as some other surprising moments that have unfolded over the last few months, have helped me to see things in a different, more gentler way. It’s true that we can’t escape disappointment. But there is a difference between simply being indifferent (or even in despair) and ‘holy indifference’, which St. Ignatius of Loyola teaches about in his Spiritual Exercises.
Throughout this process, there has been a beautiful invitation to simply try my best and entrust the outcome to God. And this same invitation has happened again and again over the last several months. So the question then becomes this: Am I willing to be surprised by the Lord? Do I really trust that He has my best interests and better plans than I could ever imagine at heart?
Even in heartbreak, there was an invitation to trust that He is still present and still working. There was an invitation to abide and remain hopeful, even if shakily, knowing that in time He will show me a still more excellent way. Usually God is able to show up with the third option that I can’t see from my vantage point, because I only see in black and white. But God’s power is more profound, and He sees in greater clarity and colour than I ever could.
So maybe this is the hope that I want to share today: God meets us in every moment, and He’s always inviting us to meet Him there. I’ve spent a long time wrapping myself in self-preservation and self-protection, unwilling to be vulnerable or let myself get hurt. But He has ways for us. He has great plans. And He’ll never force us to take them on, but man, life is so much cooler, so much richer, when we do give Him a chance.
And to be clear: Life with God, abiding in Him, doesn’t necessarily protect us from heartbreak or disappointment. That’s not what He’s trying to do. But He’s inviting me into that gift of hope that no matter what, He’s got me — even when it doesn’t make sense or it seems almost backwards. When I don’t get what I want or when things don’t go my way, He is still working.
My prayer as we go into the second half of this year is that we continue to be gentler with ourselves and the expectations that we put on ourselves, but we give greater power to the Lord who is mighty and does great things (cf. Luke 1:49).
That we put ourselves out there — we do the hard things, we strike up the conversations, and we do what scares us — confident in “this hope, a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul” that has been given to us in Christ (cf. Hebrews 6:19).
And if you need an accountability buddy, let me know, because I want to continue to grow in the confidence that God is constantly fighting for us — and it is always so beautiful to see it in my own life and in those around me.
Happy World Day of Social Communications!
In Jesus,
Rachel
Congratulations Rachel!! I can't think of a better next chapter / project for you to drive your gifts towards. I loved reading your reflections around this. He truly does know us better than we can imagine and always has the next surprise around the corner.