Hope Carried

Today, I stood.  In a room that could have been dark sorrowful dreary.  Instead, hope flickered and fanned into a brilliant blaze.

In a week where tragedy rocked our tight knit community, hope held tighter.  Glimpses all around.   As young people spontaneously gather to pray, uplift, cry and hold one another.   As friends call and reach out and stand together.  Even when we don't understand, hope surfaces.

Hope is the sweetest of incense that permeates death's nasty stench.  

In my own walk, down the dusty road that brought me to my knees.  Hope came.  A hug.  A prayer for my family.  Flowers delivered to my door.  The list goes on.

In all honesty, we all hit times where hope hibernates.  Alluding our grasp as we focus all our strength to cling. Because hope was never meant to be held alone.  Hope was meant to be carried.  

Carried into the hospitals of those sick with pain.  Carried into prisons where the world of sin has seemingly won.  Carried to a friends house with sticky cinnamon rolls.  Carried into a memorial where no one understands.  Hope was meant to be carried.

I witnessed it today.  The tears came for all of us.  At one point, my tears burst fast and furious.  Hope was there in the arms of a friend and a hug.  One that has walked my path.   One of my hope carriers.  

Hope carriers.  Find them.  Your life craves them.  You need them.  The ones that infuse hope into any situation.  The ones who can listen and understand and breath hope with a simple sigh.  

Hope carriers.  Be one.  The lives around you crave them.  They need you.  The ones that carry hope into a dark situation regardless of the ick that may splatter on you.  The ones who refuse to stay in the safe place and march into the battle side by side with you.

Hope deferred makes the heart sick ... but hope carried brings life like no other. 

"Oh, may the God of hope fill you up with joy, fill you up with peace, so that your believing lives, filled with the life-giving energy of the Holy Spirit, will brim over with hope!" (Romans 14:13 the message)

Brim over with hope.  Splash it.  Spill it.  Slosh it.  All over everyone's lives, regardless of the circumstances that swirl.  Because hope was meant to be carried, together.  

I have been silent this week.  But today as hope filled my heart, I put pen to words and wrote.  That the lives of these precious ones would spill hope into all of ours.