HOPE

“You are lucky you have something to have HOPE in,” the homeless woman barked at my daughter. Kaleigh sat stunned for a minute, looking to me wondering what had just happened. “I think we all can have HOPE in our lives,” I mentioned softly as she stormed past.

The setting was a Starbucks right across from the beach. My daughter and I, killing time while this lady was using the cool place as a refuge for a bit. As the agitated woman hurried out, we sat stunned; rattled by the raw confession of someone with a hopeless heart.

We watched her cross to the beach, the sky exploding with glorious sunset, a stark contrast to the unrest in this woman’s soul. We headed over ourselves wanting to take a few pictures of the colorful sky, wondering if we should say something more, offering our thoughts up as a prayer.

As we took our photos, we noticed in the distance that she was setting up camp for the night. We grabbed a blanket from the car and brought it over. She accepted our offering and we sat and talked for a while. We listened as she spilled out her life story of joy and sorrow and abandonment and that gnawing lack of HOPE deep inside and the feeling that she had no purpose to live.

And inside me was that urgency, the stirring up of what is deep-rooted within, the anchor to my very core, what gives me HOPE. So I also spilled, the stories of hopeless moments of my own, the overwhelming times, and what gets me through. All the while, the waves crash over and over, as sure as there is sorrow and despair, they crash. And we talk about HOPE.

Isn’t that the challenge in this world? To feel hopeful?

In the middle of the chaos and sorrow that come just as sure as the waves hit the sand, we can be left drowning in a world that feels hopeless. The homeless. The discouraged. The left behind. The strugglers. The pain filled. The sick. The lonely. The war-torn. The oppressed. The sad. The lost. Where is the HOPE?

“….it is impossible that God would prove false, we who have taken refuge might be strongly encouraged to seize the HOPE set before us. We have this HOPE, a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul.”~Hebrews 6: 18-19

The only answer there is. This HOPE is the anchor to our very soul, our purpose. When we are apart from this HOPE, we are simply floating aimlessly like a lost ship at sea or drowning in this ways of this world.

We promised to think of one another, this homeless woman, my daughter, and I. Often I find myself waking up thinking her name; praying wherever she is, she may feel anchored, more peaceful, finding refuge, seizing HOPE.