I take it all in. The sky, with bits of pink and grey- strips of color extended across the remains of the day. We head for home- trying to beat the moon.

The last One’s bike freezes up. Something about the front brakes- and I’m no bike technician. So while the others push for home, she and I walk side by side- me with the errant bike, front wheels up in the air, as that is how this must ‘go down’ for us to get back to the warmth of home. This is how it goes sometimes- a mother takes the burden on herself for the sake of the child. She stays beside me all the way, and then thanks me profusely when we are almost there. But does she not understand? I love her. I would do this anyway.

I think of life and of all the obstacles that stop us dead in our tracks. While everyone else seemingly goes on with the business of living, there are some of us that find it hard to just put one foot in front of the other. There are some of us that get held up- sidelined- left to wonder why we should keep going. What’s it all for, anyway?

We make slow gains, she and I. Cars come faster now that the sun’s gone down. I keep a watchful eye on the road.
Is hope wishful thinking in an age of despair? Is there really such a thing- such an ideal as hope? Or am I truly delusional?

For it sometimes seems that there is a relentless pursuit underway for the phantom mirage right in front of the eyes, just for a drop of that precious life-giving water. Only to find out that what has been sought was merely but a figment of the imagination. A dream.

The highs and the lows of understanding.

Darkness settles in heavy by the time we turn in to our farm lane, marked by the blue barn on one side and the darkened river far to the right on the other. The girls are playing on the lawn, but it is too dark to see them. I hear their voices. One comes running, “I was so scared,” she says. Just seeing my face has made all the difference.

And isn’t that the way.

Just seeing the face of one who knows- does not that give hope? Does not that speak wisely of promising expectation? Of realized desires?

If it is hope that we seek, than it is hope we shall find.

Hope found in a mother’s warm embrace in the dead of night. Hope sought in a doctor’s good report. Hope uncovered in a warm embrace- a gentle kiss. Hope discovered in a word- a gesture. Hope found in the right word fitly spoken. The right deed carefully done. And if all else fails and hope is lost, knowing that this hope to which I cling- this faithful expectation will revive lost hope and see it through to the very end: that hope of which I speak is Hope found through the everlasting love of a faithful Father.

I believe in hope in the very same way that I believe in the promise of another day. In very much the same was as I believe in tomorrow. For there is little else on which to place my trust, than on that which I have come to hope in- that which I have come to trust. Knowing that there is more for me than this. There is more for them. More for us all. There is forever.

What hope at times I cannot fathom. But merely wait expectantly for in its revealing.

It is that hope on which I stake my claim.