Living in the Fraser Valley of British Columbia, I am well acquainted with Hope … not with a small ‘h’ but a big one.
Hope is the community East of Chilliwack. A small town with a picturesque view of the Fraser River and the mountains. A town more familiar to people who stop and keep going.
For our family it is the home of the camp of church family retreats, as well as the summer camp of our son.
The signs indicating the approach to Hope offer much opportunity for jesting …
“almost to Hope”
“don’t go beyond Hope”
“lets visit Hope”
But when we say those things we are not referring to Hope as a place, but hope as something to hold.
Don’t we all want that hope-thing to hold tightly in our hands? in our hearts?
I recently read a post by Ann Voskamp, called How to Keep Hoping for the Things that Seem Impossible, and she told a story of hope … unexpected hope.
The following are only segments of that post, but it is SO worth it to click on the link and read the entire story.
“Who believes in dreams anymore?
Who believes in unseen things,
in impossible things,
in the things you can’t measure and control and deduce and reduce and wrap up in a reasonably neat and timely package
and who in this cynical world remembers how to find Hope?”
“Time can’t dictate dreams or hijack hope or determine destination.
Time may have hands on the clock but it’s arms are too weak to rob anybody of hope, steal anybody’s prayers, destroy anybody’s joy.
And So what if time’s got hands on a clock — it’s God who has His Hands on the universe. Every little thing is going to be okay because God is working good through every little thing.
All that’s happening is just happening to make miracles. There are miracles always unfolding under the impossibles.
“Joys are always on their way to us,” writes Amy Carmichael. “They are always traveling to us through the darkness of the night. There is never a night when they are not coming.”
Because there is never a night where joys are not coming to us, there is never a road that can’t arrive at Hope. Circumstances can go ahead and run out of time — but the courageous refuse to run out of hope.
We can always hope because there is always joy traveling to us down the unexpected roads.
And because the thing is: Hope always has a cost and hope is always worth it, because who wants the cheap and deadened alternative? Hope fuels the soul to impossible places.”
itsawonderfilledlife 