Hope is alive

     

     I have a two-hour commute to work. Thankfully, I only work about seven days a month for 24-hour shifts, so I don’t mind it too much. It’s usually a boring drive across I-64, but I’m grateful for the minimal traffic. I usually enjoy this commute as my quiet time to process life’s events. Some days I listen to audiobooks, because I also enjoy a good story to be read to me.
     This morning I felt sad, as another dear friend has passed away from a sudden illness. This is a friend near my age, whose family will have to go on without him, just as it has happened to many others. I didn’t feel like listening to a story or the radio, yet the quiet was too much. I started to pray, but I couldn’t get past my feeling of emptiness and sadness for his family. 
     I thought of Ecclesiastes 3:1-2, which says, “There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens: a time to be born and a time to die.”  Verse four adds, “...a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance.” It seems so matter-of-fact, doesn’t it?
     I looked at the gray clouds ahead of me, as the morning was seeing it’s first light. “What a drab day,” I thought, as I stared at the stark scenery. It really fit my mood, my emptiness, and my feeling of hopelessness in this matter-of-fact world. 
     I looked up and glanced at my driver’s side mirror as I had just done a few seconds earlier. To my surprise, I could see a cascade of beautiful colors filling the small mirror. The sun was rising quietly and slowly. Hues of yellow, orange, pink and blue expanded the sky behind me, as if God just took His paintbrush and painted a magnificent scene in just seconds. It took my breath away. 
     In that moment, I remembered that God promises to never leave us, and that our hope is in Him. He hasn’t forgotten any of us.  Matthew 10:30 says, “And even the very hairs of your head are all numbered.” God knows each of us well and cares for us enough to know every detail about us. This world may seem matter-of-fact at times, but God gives us hope.  His eyes are on us. Psalm 33:18 says, “But the eyes of the Lord are on those who fear Him, on those whose hope is in His unfailing love.”
     So I exhaled out my sadness, and then I smiled. My heart felt warm and full, because God reminded me that He stays close to us, and He is our reason for hope.  That hope will always be alive.