My granddaughter hopes for another sleepover at Papa-Lala’s House. My grandson hopes we’ll have another fire in the pit. We all hope for things, activities, and circumstances to come true.
Sometimes they do, sometimes they don’t. But we keep hoping.
Then there are the important things in life. When I was younger, I hoped for a wife, a family, and a good job. I’m fortunate to have received all of those, yet I devoted myself to a hopeful outcome and navigated surprises and hardships along the way.
It seems the life of hope is a bit of a dance.
Like a partner urging me onto the dance floor, hope calls me forward, believing in what could be. I respond with wholehearted enthusiasm, yet sometimes the dance goes horribly wrong. I trip or fall, or look plain stupid. I feel devastated for trying and vow never to hope again.
It is written, “hope deferred makes the heart sick.”
Yet hope lies in wait like a good friend waiting for the next moment I need it. And I’ve always needed hope.
Hope is also called "an anchor of our soul.”
This dance of hope is both a longing and a mystery, and we each have the privilege of discovering it for ourselves.
As I round the corner on this final lap of my life, I realize my dance partner, hope, has always been part of me. It was there from the very beginning. It guided me through the ups and downs and will eventually usher me home.
I believe it’s true: “Without hope, people will perish.” How grateful we can be that God’s hope is ever-present and patiently waiting for the next dance.
