Hope Around Every Corner

Photo taken by Antracia

When I look down the highway of my life, hope often seems like a mirage. You know, like that puddle of water in the middle of the hot pavement that is non-existent by the time you get up on it.

How can hope survive in the midst of a father's cancer diagnosis?

An unknown future?

Messy relationships?

Friendships gone awry?

Yet, hope is found around every corner. And it is the building block of our faith.

Our hope is not like the world's—an idle hope that wrings its hands wishing for something better. No. Our hope is a living hope. A hope that stands beside us when there is no reason to hope.

Hope wraps its arm around our shoulders, holding us up. Walking with us down lonely paths, putting its hand under our chin and lifting our faces to the light, pointing us to the source of our hope: Jesus.

It is this same hope that kept my faith aflame when I got the call more than a decade ago that my mother was teetering on the edge of death: a heart attack. Double bypass surgery.

The words blurred my vision and dared to snuff out the already flickering flame. But hope in God's resurrection power sustained me. Kept me from crumbling into a million pieces.

Hope sat next to me on that hour flight from Southern California heading north towards home. Hope held my trembling hand and let me lay my worried head on its shoulder. Hope softened the fall when I fainted upon arriving at my mother's bedside—watching her lay there unrecognizable.

It was only after God had delivered her that we found out that her heart had stopped. And the doctors were going to let her go. But it was one nurse who urged them to keep working on her because she was too young. She had too much to live for, the nursed urged.

Hope was alive in that operating room; standing vigil at my mother's bed and speaking through that nurse.

It's this same hope that sustained the heroes of the Bible.

Hope kept Joseph going when he was mocked by his brothers for a God-given dream. Hope carried him when those same brothers threw him in a ditch and then turned around and sold him into slavery. The hope didn't wane when he was wrongly accused of making a sexual advance and then thrown into prison.

 Around every difficult corner, hope stood waiting for Joseph. It kept him believing in God who would bring that dream to pass in a most remarkable way.

Even when there was no reason for hope, Abraham kept hoping—believing that he would become the father of many nations. (Romans 4:18). As each year passed, his faith was being built stronger block by block.

When there is no reason to hope, how can we be like Abraham and keep holding on?

How can I keep trudging on even when everything looks hopeless?

How do I do that when the cancer has visibly eaten away at my father's once vigorous frame and he's still hasn't surrendered his life to Jesus?

The answer is at once easy and hard. I, like you, must decide to live not on the basis of what I see, but on the truth that God will do what He said He would do.

Once again, I'm grabbing hold of hope's hand and in the process watching my faith being slowly built block by block. Hope lives and can indeed be found around every corner.

Antracia Moorings is a mommy. Wife. Wordsmith. Lover of Jesus. Bible believer. Bookworm. kate spade fan. iPhone convert. Magazine fanatic. Reality TV show junkie. Photography novice. Paper crafts creator. And most importantly, a miracle in the making. She blogs over at The Non-Superwoman Chronicles and can be followed on twitter as @NONSuperwoman.