it’s funny how many times each year i learn that my plans are very rarely the plans of the author of this story.  i tend to catch a glimpse of something, a glimmer into the possibilities of the future and i latch onto that sliver of hope and squeeze it with all i have.

i’m learning that this thing called hope is rarely caught.  it’s rarely something one can capture in the hand and save for the future.  i’m learning that hope is something that is created in a way i cannot duplicate.  it’s something that i can smother and choke, that i can ultimately snuff out.  but it’s not something i can create.

i should have learned by now that the most beautiful moments in creation are fleeting, the sun settling behind the mountains as the stars flicker to life,  the promises reminded when a rainbow breaks through the storm clouds, the hint of a new day as the early dawn bleeds into the sky.

these moments, in their own individual ways, are beautiful, fleeting, temporal.  but if we’re looking for them, they’re around us every day.  they are there, if only we’d notice.  and im beginning to realize that hope is the same way.  tin the early dawn, in the storm, in the sunset and the shimmering night sky.  hope exists not because i create it, but because of the Creator.  hope exists not because i hold onto it, but because it is given to me.

as much as i want to create and control, the spark of hope comes from a being far more powerful, and more wise than i.  tonight, i find myself not only in need of hope but reminded that hope exists because of the Hope Maker.  because of the Author of this story.  and i’m learning that when those glimpses come, instead of grasping onto them and praying they wont go out, i need to stand in wonder at the beauty i’m being shown.  because it’s in stopping, and treating these glimmers of hope like the gifts they are, that we fan the flame, that we breath life onto them.  hope, much like fire, is a dangerous and powerful thing.  it brings warmth, light and in so many ways we dont always realize, renewed life to those that it touches.

hope exists because in His ultimate wisdom, the Author of this story knew i would need it.  knew i would need the reminder of promises unbroken wrapped in the colors of a rainbow.  He knew i’d need to know that even through the violence born on the winds of the tempest, the sun still conquers the clouds.  He knew that there would be times when i’d grab onto the quivering ray of hope and smother it in my fear of letting it go.

He knew that i’d need reminders, daily.  reminders that there is beauty.  that beneath the busyness of this world, beneath the chaos and noise that we live in, flow eternal words that cause the planets to follow their orbits.  words that cause the stars to shine and the moon to glow.  words that cause hope.  words of grace and words of mercy.

words, of second chances.