Yet I Dare To Hope

Today is one of the most important days in the year: my birthday.

 

Every single year I have hoped for snow on my birthday and every single year I have been disappointed.  There is often snow in other places in the country, or snow in the weeks just after my birthday, but I have yet to enjoy snow on my actual birthday.

 

However, despite the fact that I have yet to enjoy snow on my birthday, despite the years of disappointment, every single year I still hope that it might just snow.  I eagerly watch the weather forecasts, I wake up during the night before my birthday just to check outside.  Even now, with a few hours left of my birthday, I think it might just snow.  There's still a chance.

 

Despite the disappointment, I still dare to hope.

 

And it's a tiny, pale, weak reflection of what the writer of Lamentations described in the Bible.  The book of Lamentations, as the name suggests, is a book of mourning at the destruction and desolation of Jerusalem.

 

And yet, in the very middle of the book, there is a tiny seed of hope.  A moment where, despite the dire circumstances, the writer remembers God's goodness.  And it gives him cause to hope.

 

      "The thought of my suffering and homelessness
      is bitter beyond words.

      I will never forget this awful time,
      as I grieve over my loss.
      Yet I still dare to hope
      when I remember this:

      The faithful love of the Lord never ends!
      His mercies never cease.
      Great is his faithfulness;
      his mercies begin afresh each morning.
      I say to myself, “The Lord is my inheritance;
      therefore, I will hope in him!”

      The Lord is good to those who depend on him,
      to those who search for him.
      So it is good to wait quietly
      for salvation from the Lord."

 

     [Lamentations 3:19-26 NLT, emphasis mine]

 

 

Yet I still dare to hope.

 

Despite difficult circumstances, despite repeated disappointments, despite broken dreams, still I dare to hope when I remember who it is that I trust. 

 

We can continue to hope, because we can put our hope and trust in a faithful, loving, merciful God.

 

And as for the snow, there's always next year.