"Tell me somethin', give me hope for the night. We don't know how we feel"

I am conflicted about The Stranger. The self reflection found in this blog is a testimony to my constant quest for value and meaning, which goes directly against the idea that the world is absurd and meaning cannot exist. But recently I have found myself living more and more in the present rather than hoping for the future or reflecting on the past (less clear due to the angst present in this blog). I know it's a popular philosophy to live in the Now, but for me it's a little uncomfortable to experience life and not analyze because I do believe in an organized universe sculpted by my Creator. I believe in meaning, invest my life in meaning, and Camus' philosophy in The Stranger contradicts that.

But on one hand, I'm not quite convinced it does, and that scares me.
I began this unit with disagreeing with each of the statements on the anticipation guide except for the "I can only obtain true meaning in life after I have reached a state of nothingness" which I agree with when looked at through a Christian lens as it echo's the idea of John 3:30 "He must become greater I must become less"

I ended this unit questioning my stance on the first statement "existence is absurd and true meaning in life is impossible." I'm not striving for meaning, am I still as invested in it? I will admit that most of my knowledge of existentialism and absurdism along with Camus' beliefs comes from Wikipedia and I am really confused by it all.
All I know is that the chart on the Absurdism wiki-page makes me think that my own philosophies don't necessarily contradict Theistic Existentialism or Absurdism. But I meet the rest of the information mostly with disagreement.

In my last last post I look for hope, hope not being antonymous with despair, but instead the ability to look forward into the future. Hope is what is missing from the end of The Stranger, and this lack of hope is what most prevents me from accepting the existentialist/absurdist philosophy, but is also the very thing that leaves me with Camus' words uncomfortably echoing in my head. With my own future chocked fully of ambiguity I don't have the same type of specific optimism that I've had in the past. I am looking forward to the coming times, but I don't know quite what to look for, so I have found myself focusing more on the present and assessing less value to experiences, just letting them exist. But more than ever, I want hope, I want anticipation, I want to keep looking forward. I don't want to be like Mersault, I don't want ever to be able to identify with the closing statement of this novel:

"As if that blind rage had washed me clean, rid me of hope; for the first time, in that night alive with signs and stars, I opened myself to the gentle indifference of the world...I felt that I had been happy and that I was happy again. For everything to be consummated, for me to feel less alone, I had only to wish that there be a large crowd of spectators the day of my execution and that they greet me with cries of hate" (page 122-3)

I think the only way to cope with returning is to keep focused on the future (listening to my bros Tennyson and Sophocles), to make each end a new beginning, so I guess the next question is how does one keep their eyes on the hopeful horizon and move on?
Camus gives me this question, but provides me with no answers.

Title from "Winter Song" by The Head and The Heart