Hope
Hope is the thing with feathers/That perches in the soul./And sings the tune/Without the words,/and never stops at all.
Emily Dickinson
I've been thinking about hope a lot lately. I've found that it comes in many different forms, and it doesn't always look the way I think it will, but that's starting at the end instead of the beginning of my thoughts about hope. I suppose that "hope" is not an unusual topic to think about as a pregnant woman. I have a special kind of hope growing inside, making itself evident in some ways but not in others. Every kick and wiggle reinforces the desire that is growing inside me just as surely as the baby is. With my last pregnancy almost every hope was centered around the Man somehow being able to video in for the birth--and he was. With this pregnancy, I've been hoping for a pair of healthy feet, and according to the doctor's assessment of our ultrasound, that's exactly what we're getting.
Our hopes don't always end up in such neat packages though. There are, of course, the bigger hopes, the ones that we spend years waiting for, but I think most of what I'm talking about are the small hopes: the hope that Littles will sleep past seven (he won't), the hope that the dog won't rip my arm out trying to get to a jackrabbit (he won't), the hope that the Man will make it home for dinner (it's a 50/50 chance). It's hopes like these that, in some small way, make or break us. Do we stop hoping--and working--for change because we are frequently confronted by disappointment? Do we find ourselves blinded to hope fulfilled in the face of hope disheartened?
I'm not necessarily here with the answers, just with thoughts. I've been thinking a lot about 2 Corinthians 4:16-18, "So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal." For some reason, I feel that these verses are the key to hope. Not that we don't hope for those little things that may or may not occur (or the big things that may take years in the coming), but that we keep our hopes within the perspective of forever with Christ. I guess this is just a lot of rambling to say that, like everything else in life, hope is only beautiful when seen in relation to Christ.
Our hopes don't always end up in such neat packages though. There are, of course, the bigger hopes, the ones that we spend years waiting for, but I think most of what I'm talking about are the small hopes: the hope that Littles will sleep past seven (he won't), the hope that the dog won't rip my arm out trying to get to a jackrabbit (he won't), the hope that the Man will make it home for dinner (it's a 50/50 chance). It's hopes like these that, in some small way, make or break us. Do we stop hoping--and working--for change because we are frequently confronted by disappointment? Do we find ourselves blinded to hope fulfilled in the face of hope disheartened?
I'm not necessarily here with the answers, just with thoughts. I've been thinking a lot about 2 Corinthians 4:16-18, "So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal." For some reason, I feel that these verses are the key to hope. Not that we don't hope for those little things that may or may not occur (or the big things that may take years in the coming), but that we keep our hopes within the perspective of forever with Christ. I guess this is just a lot of rambling to say that, like everything else in life, hope is only beautiful when seen in relation to Christ.
