Burn On!

Can you imagine living a life where there is no hope? Where everyday is an Eeyore day, humdrum, nothing to look forward to, what happens happens and so on? It doesn't sound very appealing to me. More than that, if one had no hope, how could one function through the pain, turmoil and tragedy in this life? If there is no hope, what spurs one on to tomorrow. Or the next day. Or the next.

Hope. The tiny flicker within the soul that makes tomorrow possible.

I'm thinking specifically of some dear people, some I know personally, some I know of but don't really know, who look to tomorrow with hope. A girlfriend who should be holding a brand new baby, but instead delivered and buried a tiny angel many months too early. A tiny girl formed perfectly by God's hand, but in a body too sick for this world.

A family whose daughter has been on chemotherapy since she was an infant. She is two years old now. Fighting, struggling, hoping to rid this sweet little one of leukemia. Today, I can only imagine the hope they are feeling as she underwent a bone marrow transplant. A hope for the future knowing that today will be incredibly hard. Tomorrow too.

Hope.

There are families who desperately want children. They suffer miscarriage, fertility treatment, sorrow, loss time and again. Yet, always, hope drives them forward. A child will come, in God's way in God's time. A weak person struggles on vainly doing what they can do, a courageous person leaves it in God's hand, accepting His will in whatever shape, form, way, miracle it may come.

A family watched their mother pass away yesterday from breast cancer. She will never see them graduate from highschool. Yet, they will get up and go on. Day by day.

Another wife, mother, grandmother is fighting cancer. So sick, tired, weary of the treatments and medicines, yet hopeful. Holding grandbabies, thinking of grandbabies to come. Loving family, drawing them close, a hope for a healthy tomorrow.

Don't lose heart! Fan the flame of hope. Jesus too suffered, hurt, bore the sins of a world on his shoulders, but He had a hope for tomorrow. Followers of Jesus always have hope for tomorrow. Today it hurts, but burn on little flame! God has conquered tomorrow!

2 Corinthians 4:16-18
Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal. (NIV)