:::::::::”The Lord is my portion,” says my soul, “therefore I will hope in him.” +Lamentations 3:24

He purchased Hope for us.

So we could breathe hope in like oxygen to a parched lung to quench our soul’s desire::::

When He breathed His last human breath and took everything of our beat-down, broken-bleeding, barren mess with Him:::

He took it when the curtain ripped top- bottom and the Earth shook and it was finished.

He took it all:::

:::that little doubt and unbelief that seeps and creeps in the crevices of our hearts?

He answered that with His hope.

::: that little jump of your heart that giggles in expectation?

Hope.

:;; that place in your heart reserved for all that is to be and no matter what happens to you, you can still feel it right there, where it has always, always resided?

Hope.

He answered it all with that tiny one-syllable word::

Breathed out in an exhale of lightening::

:::::hope:::::

because He had hope for His beloved. On that splintering cross.

You.are.His.beloved.

::::::And He has great hope for you.

He breathed hope into the life of His Son so that He on Earth could gather us in and speak this life-giving gift called hope into our searching, longing, life-wanting, desolate hearts.

::::::::::::: And again Isaiah says, “The root of Jesse will come, even He who arises to  rule the Gentiles; in Him will the Gentiles hope.” +Romans 15:12

Hearts like ours need hope like His.

Oh, to hope!

Doesn’t that bind us all together and keep us hemmed in and moving and open starry-eyed dreams and just drip of things unseen?

Sometimes we fail to even name it::: Hope::: but that is what it is.

Even when I’ve left hope un-named and un-noticed when things bear up rocky and un-anchored:

When my brother passes and I dare to smile and remember at the mention of his name,

When I pray over my little ones and ask the Lord to draw them close to Him and I rest in that,

When we argue for a full two hours and we look at one another in exhaustion and forgive,

When the baby is gone and I have not carried but barely three months, but we grieve and start anew,

When I see her six pound eleven ounce bundle of pink and love and made by him and me and I fall down in darkness and I can not crawl my way off my pillow and I look up at my love when he says to me::: this will pass::: and I feel relief in his three little words,

When the last of the crickets sing in the Summertime and I look longingly at the lake and notice the flutter of leaves already and soak in the late August day…

Hope!

We are made for ::: Living!

We are made for ::: Hoping!

And

we can hope;

we can hope all things,

in Him.

According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you… +1 Peter 1:3-4