Hanging Onto Hope

This past year has been the most difficult our family has ever faced.  Yet when last year started I had an overwhelming sense of peace that healing was going to happen in our family.  The thing is that in order to experience the deepest sense of healing there is usually a crisis of some kind or a series of crisis.

We desperately pray asking God to reveal more of Himself to us, but in the same breath we ask God to make it easy for us.  This is not what He desires because in all reality we have to be so completely dependent on Him that we would never be able to get through the day without Him....or even a minute.  If we had it all figured out chances are we would thank God with a quick prayer and move about our business as usual, but we wouldn't be in complete awe of Him.

This is my engagement and wedding ring.  Nothing terribly special in the amount of money that was spent on them.  It is only amazing because of who gave it to me!  It is only amazing because of the almost 20 years of marriage they have withstood!  It is only amazing because it holds the story of how we saved money and flew back and forth several times over the ocean just to be with each other the year before we were married!  It is only amazing because of the millions of memories Jason and I have shared since he placed that engagement ring on my hand!

So several months back my engagement ring broke.  The original estimate for the repair was about twice what the ring was worth.  Yep, that gives you an idea of the money spent on it now doesn't it?  So I tucked it away thinking one day when we have tons of extra money we can repair it.

I missed the ring, but my love for my husband is definitely not caught up in a ring.  Months passed.... some of the most hard experiences any marriage and family could go through happened... and we breathed in and out and kept marching on sometimes barely, but still moving forward.  We knew there had to be hope even when it didn't seem like there was at the moment.

On New Year's Eve we celebrated as best we could.  Lit up fireworks, had a dance party, watched the last episode of Little House On The Prairie (where they blow up the town), laughed, made a tinfoil doll dress, ate pizza and drank plenty of soda, and chased kids around in a Hulk mask.  After we saw in the New Year and tucked the kids up in bed Jason and I sat on the front porch - on my Christmas gift of log rocking chairs.

He pulled out a card and read it to me.... and then handed me my ring!  You see he thought of everything in our lives that was broken and needed healing.  He knows as well as I do that we can't fix it all.  We can't possible find healing on our own.  We can only hang onto hope.  Hang onto a God that doesn't ever leave us nor forsake us!

Last year I knew healing was coming as God whispered it into my ear.  I just didn't know what we needed healing for.  Oh, I guessed what it was for but I will be the first to say I was really clueless.  Now I see what we need healing for, and all I can say is our family is Hanging Onto Hope! Praise God for HOPE!  It is the only real tangible thing in this world we can have that can not be stolen from us no matter what the world says because our Hope is based on God!