Hope

   Hope: I cannot live without it. For me hope is about as far from wishful thinking as you can get. Hope is what drives and secures my faith. It is what anchors me to what it is that I can and will and do believe to be true about my God. The beautiful Book of Hebrews tells us that faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see. Hope is casting a net into the waters to catch what you cannot see with the eye but what you know is there beneath the surface of the sea. For a long time I struggled with the notion of faith and the constancy of hope in the life of the believer. I finally found the simplest explanation to be the one to which I return over and over again. I cannot see the wind but I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that it is there. Only recently we have been witnesses to the fact that this unseen force can twist itself into tornadoes to wreak horrific destruction on places like Tuscaloosa, Alabama, and Joplin, Missouri. Yet this selfsame wind that destroys can also be as gentle as a baby's touch as it caresses and soothes the savage seas or the drought-stricken land. But seen or unseen, there is very little doubt that wind exists. And so it is with hope.
   It was beloved Paul who taught us in the First Book of Corinthians that all else can pass away, but these three abideth still: faith, hope, and love. And the greatest of these is love. Faith, hope and love comprise the triumvirate that is woven together to bring strength and purpose and veracity to the life of the believer.
   It has been a hard and dark season for one of my children. I have alluded to this in my previous posts that specifically referenced depression. As a mother it has sorely tried and tested my faith to see one whom I carried and bore become entangled and robbed and made bereft by the scourge of a mental illness.
    However, today I stand on hope. I stand on what I cannot see, but what I know to be absolutely and immutably true. This child of mine belongs to God. He has a claim on her that will never be set aside. It is eternal. She is His even more than she is mine. In my weakness as a mother I keep grabbing her back, only to find myself engaged in a tug-of-war with the Most High God. I cannot win this struggle and I don't want to. I am the powerless one here and He is all-powerful. So daily I surrender my claim to this child and ask Him, the lover and keeper of her life and her soul, to be faithful in things great and small. And I hope. And I surrender as I cling to hope. Remember that this is not wishful thinking nor some psychological exercise in futility. This is God-breathed, God-inspired, God-wrought HOPE. And it is His gift to me, and to her, and to all you who believe.
   Hope. That strong anchor that holds in the vale. Hope that does not disappoint and does not fail. Not my hope, but the surety of my faith that is bound and held together by the love, His marvelous marvelous love that is irrevocably tied and bound to the Hope of God. The Hope that is God. This is where I am resting.

 

My eldest son took these pictures in Charleston. The tree reminds me of the oaks of righteousness, a planting for the display of His splendor. The picture of the Ravenel Bridge reminds me of an anchor...the tether that binds our hope to the very heart of God.