I choose hope

It has been a very very long winter here in the Midwest. I dare say, it's been a long winter for folks all over this country. Where we live, wintery weather can begin as soon as October and depart as late as April. That's half a year people...and yet it's only a season. Thankfully, seasons change. Even the longest of winters doesn't last forever. 

I wonder if Grace remembers a season other than winter. It's been a loooong time since the joy of swinging rocked her world. One push from Mama and she giggled and squealed over and over again as if it was her first time ever in a swing. It has probably been about 5 months but it seemed like she had forgotten it entirely. 

Isn't that how it goes sometimes? We wait and wait and wait, sometimes for months or years for something: a significant other, a spouse, a child, a new job, warmer weather, healing, the end of one chapter of life or the beginning of another. 

Sometimes we wait so long we almost forget to keep hoping. Sometimes it takes so long we forget what we were waiting for in the first place. Sometimes we give up too soon, or worse: we lose the joy of believing that what we wait for will come eventually and we lose hope. 

Ahhhh but when a long, cold, bleak season of life begins to change, new seasons of life begin, and we remember the thrill of a fresh breeze under sunshine, a light jacket instead of a parka and hat, and a care-free afternoon outside in a swing....it reminds us that seasons don't last forever. 

Seasons change, but you have to wait it out. Those of us who have endured waiting for something or someone wonderful know that even in the bleakest of wintery seasons, when it seems like there's no hope for a new season or for progress there's little to do but wait and pray and manufacture a shred of hope. 

There were seasons, several years of seasons, when I wondered if it was worth it to hope for something so amazing, so risky, so costly, so scary, so life changing. I had hope, I lost hope, I put hope on a shelf for a season or three. Sometimes hope is risky because hope and faith are close relatives. 

"Faith is the confidence that what we hope for will actually happen; it gives us assurance about things we cannot see". (Hebrews 11:1 NLT)

Today what I hoped for (and many times chose to hope for because it seemed hopeless) swings in a swing, giggling and squealing "Mama". Almost four seasons ago that hope was realized and it still takes my breath away. 

Spring has sprung, friends. It may not feel like you think it should just yet, but have hope...it will be worth the wait.