The Joy of Hope

One of the saddest things I've ever seen is someone who doesn't believe in hope. There have been so many times in my life where I've seen desperate situations turned right.

To hear and see true life stories of good happening in this world and then to hear someone say, I wish that stuff was real, breaks my heart. One thing we have the ability to do, every day, is to give hope. Make someones life brighter with simple acts and words of kindness.

When I was growing up, one of the times when things were tight, my mother was in the kitchen, looking for food to make to feed us six children. I was sitting at the kitchen table watching all of this. Things were really scarce and she went through every cupboard and finally, she said a simple out-loud little prayer, "Lord, if I just had some flour, I could make some bread."

Not one minute later, there came a knock at the door from the little girl across the street. She told us that her mom was cleaning out her cupboards and was going to throw away this flour because she didn't have anything to use it for and wondered if we would be ok accepting it. She gave us an abundance of flour that made bread for a few days.

So, why do I have such a stubborn faith in God? Because, I watched these things happen all the time, while I was growing up. I saw, time after time when God took a near disaster and turned it good. I saw some people that didn't know we were having car problems, call my mother up and tell her that they were getting ready to sell their car, and they had been praying and felt that God was telling them to offer it to her for $1.00.

So, do I know joy in hope when all the signs point to sinking sand? I do. Will I continue to believe that God will make a way and care for His children, I do. Will a lot of people stand in judgement of my idealism and belief in God's goodness and faithfulness and that He still performs miracles today, in a modern day America? Maybe. Maybe not. But, regardless of what people think, or what God chooses, I will choose to say, with Job, "...though he slay me, yet will I trust in him...", and beyond that, I will praise Him and thank Him for what He does and has done.

We live in a world, in a place full of change, where people walk in fear every day. But we also live in a land of opportunity, of awesome opportunity. The one thing about fear is, that it feeds on itself. Why spread fear, when you can spread the joy of hope? Why not spread a smile... a hopeful, joyful smile, that changes someones day and lifts their spirits, instead of the alternative.

I believe, that if we spread that hope, good things will come from it, and hope will spread like those cottonwood seeds that blow all over Michigan, and from those seeds of hope will come trees of joy and growth that will make a few economic bumps in the road into yesterday's news.

I know that words sometimes fall so short of seeing hope in action, in actually participating in spreading it and having it happen to you. I wish that somehow, I had the ability to share that deep down knowing, from inside of me (and I believe given by God's grace) that tomorrow will be a better day, and that no matter what is going on around us, we can make it a better day, in some little way for someone. When we do that, we fuel something in us and around us, that grows and spreads like a flood, to the point where no wall of negativity or bad thing can stand against it!

Sorrow and tears may last for a night, but joy comes in the morning!