Just imagine the best you can.

Sometimes waiting can seem like the worst thing ever. Have you ever been expecting a vacation or a special day and thought you might go out of your mind while waiting for THE day? Well, I want to offer a new approach... well not so new, but a different way of viewing the wait. Imagine you have 1 month until you go to the beach for a week and you get to see your beloved grandmother for the first item since last summer the same week. (I use these specifics because it is one of the things I am waiting for.) Instead of groaning in the wait and be fed up with the days in between you and the beach, why not use the time to dwell on the hope! The hope that your trip is filled with gorgeous weather, that God's light will shine to an unbelieving relative, that you will find really cool fossils at the Aurora phosphate pit, the time with family will be joyous, that your children will learn to swim-- the hope that this trip will be great. Have fun taking pleasure in the hope and let this make the daily grind joyous.

When the day for the trip gets here, nothing can spoil the hope-- I promise, if you have the right attitude not even getting stranded on an icy road, stuck literally with your car in a blind, downhill curve with your lives honestly in danger for 2 hours as you wait for the ice to melt or the city to show up and put gravel down... Not even this will ruin your trip. Even after all that, getting stuck for hours in dead stop traffic on the interstate on your way... nope still cannot ruin hope. Even being at the beach and sitting inside the condo while a hurricane blows furiously outside-- not even that. You know how I know? It has all happened to Ernie and me on our vacations.




All we could think while we were stuck on the ice was that 1. We were warm and had breakfast, 2. That God must be protecting us from some unforeseen incident that would have occurred had we not been stranded for those 2 hours. As we sat in the traffic, we just had fun enjoying the time together, hanging out the windows, with no distractions for conversation and time together. And the hurricane-- well how many Tennesseans get to experience a hurricane? In our mall we have a hurricane simulator where you can pay money to stand in hurricane force winds. See it is a fascination with more than just us or why else would someone be making money off of this contraption. We got to walk in the winds, feel the ocean spray from the winds, witness the enormous waves, and see how hurricane safe glass in windows and doors really works... Well it was pretty cool and even though we could not swim (well some people swam in the hurricane-- not too smart I figured) we sure enough have some memories we will cherish.

This kind of hope comes from the Lord. The Bible says those who hope in the Lord will find strength and be renewed (Isaiah 40:31). There have been so many times that God has placed hope in front of me to keep me strong and on the right path. When we first were moving to this area after burning bridges to our old life and following the Holy Spirit to a new life with no job and no place to live, all we had was hope. We had the hope of finding a job and an apartment. We had 1 day we came here and went on the search for an apartment to move into, and then after finding one that allowed our little Chihuahua, we went on the job hunt. We left this town to go back to my parents (where we lived for a few days while packing our stuff) with a lease signed on an apartment, and two very hopeful job prospects. The hope alleviated the fear of "what if we do not find a job".


We moved here and I found a job right away at Main Street, it took Ernie a little longer, but we still had hope. Until then my boss had work he needed done around the business and he hired Ernie to do it until he found a permanent job. Ernie found a job after nearly 2 months.

I love looking back on such instances and see that the hope was real, but the outcome the Lord offers is greater still than the hope. I think that our human imaginations could never actually hope in what the Lord really has in store for us because we can't picture it. I could have never imagined myself sitting in the middle of a hurricane praising God and witnessing such power. I could never have imagined our life now compared to what it used to be. We could never come up with the greatness of His plan on our own.

We still hope though and grow stronger as we do. We conjure up these images of streets paved with gold and pearly gates and mansions... BUT I bet when we actually get there, Heaven will be so much more than we hoped for and our experience with God, at His feet, in His presence, holding His hand... well just imagine the best you can.