There’s a word that’s been following me around for a while. And as the days turned into weeks and the weeks have now become months, it seems that I am still unable to escape it.
The word is hope.
There was a day in late summer when I was sitting in my bed and outside my window came a sudden rain storm. As I sat and listened to it pop off of the roof of our house, I instantly began to feel drawn to it. I climbed out of bed and walked to the window and took a peek out. I remember this moment sweeping over me because I was peering out at one of my favorite sights. The sky was spilling water and yet, the earth was blanketed in sunshine. It was the kind of day you had to let envelop you. It was the kind of Saturday afternoon where you have no choice but to pull back the curtains, raise the blinds and let the light stream in as you watch the water travel down the window panes.
And as I’ve asked the Lord so many times over these months what the word hope is supposed to mean to me in these times, He reminded me of that Saturday. Hope is very much like that rain storm. It draws you and invites you to itself, captivates you with its beauty and it floods every part of the place in which you let it enter. It leaves you breathless and it imprints itself on your life in such a way that it when it is no longer there, you long for it in the deepest parts of your soul.
It wasn’t the rain storm that was the cause of my hope that day, although it did set the most beautiful scene. No, the hope came from something else entirely. And while that which had evoked such deep expectancy inside of me is no longer there, I must not lose heart, I must not lose hope. Perhaps it is not realistic to hope for the things I did on that breathtaking afternoon, but it does not mean that the cause for hope is gone entirely.
There is a hope, an anchor for my soul, that says He is faithful and He will finish what He started. And for whatever reason, He started something in my heart that day and I have to trust that He will see it to completion, whatever that looks like. Maybe it will not look anything like what I expected, but if He is the one who painted that captivating rainstorm, then whatever He does will be nothing short of glorious.
ASHLIN BOYLES 