Five Minute Friday: Hope -

- Five Minute Friday - 

Today's prompt: Hope:

 ~ Go ~ 

I've been having a lot of conversations lately about Hope. Or lack, thereof. 

It's come up in phone conversations, in FB messages, in text messages. 

It's been a hard hard week for our nation.
It's so easy to get caught up in everything that's happening and feel like America is less and less like America.
It's easy to forget that Jesus is reigning in power. 

But even under all that, or without that....there are the lives that daily thrive on hope. 

Or go quiet in the sadness of lives that seem empty without it. 

I keep thinking of this poem by Emily Dickinson -

"Hope" is the thing with feathers,

that perches in the soul,

and sings the tune without words,

and never stops at all. 

I've always loved that poem. 

But I've very much felt the pain of darkest moments where Hope has died,
and it's awful, dreadful, and terrible. 

The moments when Hope has flown away and it seemed like Death won.
The most heartbreaking of days. 

Or the days when your little Hope bird seems like it's only flitting around your neighbor's lawn. 

Or a few towns over, your best friend has got a whole bird feeder full of Hope birds, while yours is empty. 

Or the nights when the Hope bird lost its way back to your house in the dark. 

Or the days you look around and realize your Hope bird didn't have room because sorrow pushed it down and it didn't have room to sing. 

Or the days you have a little Hope bird song in your heart but your love's Hope bird has a broken wing.

I know. 

But the little Hope bird does not feed on the seed of feelings, nor does it linger to wait for the words
you utter of what you think of it. It does not thrive upon who you are or what you've done. 

The Hope Bird lives forever on the seeds of Truth and what you cannot SEE. 

It is, after all, HOPE. 

"Now hope does not disappoint, 

because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts 
by the Holy Spirit who was given to us." ~ Romans 5:5 ~

The Hope bird does not disappoint, because the Hope bird doesn't need us. 

The Hope bird was made by Jesus to refresh, refill, rejuvenate, and fill us in abundance of joy
for a tomorrow that was made beautiful by a sacrifice long ago, and a Story that has been written for us. 

A beautiful Story that we can't see yet but the Hope bird sings about. 

Even on the hardest days, Hope is alive, because Jesus is.
Our forever is secure because Jesus is Hope. 

~ Stop ~ 

With love always,

~ Jean Marie ~