Because. He Is. My Hope.

College girl leans back and drapes herself on kitchen table. I sip tea. Something loose leaf from Tibet, I think. Gift from tea connoisseurs, daughter-in-family and her lanky husband-my firstborn son. Gift from a piece of their own story.   

And fuzzy pink polka-dot socks hang dangley off one end of table, tapping the kitchen air all lark.

Tea steeps in traditional Japanese tea pot. Spout and handle side by side. Not English style. Gift from Japan-traveling German husband. I pour Tibetan tea. Liquid stream of amber. And china cup fills. Steady, slow, careful.  

And this pink hoodie over black shorts over brown stockings stretches across table length and long hair pours brunette waves over table side. Laughing. And eyes dance bright in one-two-three, one-two-three waltzing laughter, jigging chatter. Dancing on table top.

Amber washes the red peony painted inside my tea cup. Bright blue handle. Red china flower blooms in blue curve just above the curl of my finger. This cup also gift. From the son who knows more about the weight set in the garage than about tea cups. But he knows me.

And this college daughter. I raise an eye-brow. And my straight line finds curve. Curves up. And what flower blooms in curve just below eyes that smile, too? Laughter warm. Laughter mine. If laughter had a color it would be amber. And my heart is all red peony washed amber and drinking in laughter. We’re soaked in tears of laughter. A joyful rain like the one falling from the sky today.

Then this very same daughter spilling amber all over my table top grabs my hand and pulls me to patio, rain soaked. She twirls dizzy there. Soaking up laughing rain. Soaking herself in splash falling from God’s eyes smiling.

 

 

And I wonder how many rain drops fall because God is giddy with joy. I wonder at the thunder. Is it the roar of His laughter? Lightening, the Texas Two-Step? Eyes lit up bright as He jigs overtop earth table?

“Look around you and see through it to Me,” God voice from autumn fire last week.

I haven’t forgotten. Faith, trust, and all hope. Seeing faith, believing truth, hoping through all. God hope. Regarding God, regardless, and because.

Because. He Is. My Hope.

Unseen but oh so real. Glory-hope. Now-hope. Forever-hope. Faith is wrapped up in it. My own faith endures because of it and I am looking. Looking around me. Looking to unwrap faith.

It’s happening slow. I’m slowing my world to see less blur. I’m watching leaves fall slow in a morning wind that can’t make up its mind which way to blow. The wind is blur, but the leaves aren’t. A swirl flocks on wings speckled yellow and brown and… what’s this? Leaf wings and lights in the curl of my finger around mug of morning coffee. It really does! It’s no special color. Not red or bright orange. Just brown and yellow speckle. But it is gift.

I bend over it. Looking. And simply see through it to God. I do! It sounds too simplistic. Too easy. But last week was all autumn fire. I gladly hold one plain leaf today.

So many on the ground now. Tree limbs are being stripped. Leaf by leaf.

And if rain is sometimes happy tears of God joy, couldn’t leaves falling be  too?

Things are changing. Falling away. I’m changing and impatient for a few things to just blow away. But pluck a leaf before it’s ready to fall and it will bleed wound. Let it fall when it’s ready to let go and it will dance flutter.

I carry leaf inside and set it on kitchen counter. Its veins are old and its skin paper thin, fragile. But it’s free.

The letting go isn’t forced. It’s an act of faith. And I see it in its nakedness and hope holds my own faith. Hope for emotional healing. And mental healing. Hope for chains to be broken and for beauty out of ashes. Hope for all that God has said is. But not all seen, yet.

Simply Leaf

I tug on hope.

Jesus is my hope. And didn’t Jesus endure for the joy set before Him?

I tug harder on hope.

Ribbon Way as long as forever wrapped around faith and trust. Pistis and pisteuo to the end of joy. It’s all tied together somehow. Hope hangs naked, while faith endures trial.

And joy fills even now.

It’s beautiful. But I’m afraid of it too. Because it’s “let us also be full of joy now! Let us exalt and triumph in our troubles….” And it’s “let us rejoice and exult in our hope of experiencing and enjoying the glory of God” (Romans 5:2-3 Amp.).

And because this joy, this exultation in my hope of experiencing and enjoying God’s glory is not without “approved faith and tried integrity.” Not without painful birth to character.

But what sort of character is birthed by “God’s love poured out… through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us?’” (Romans 5:5). What sort birthed so? Christ character. In me.  

I have desired and feared four times birthing pain. And gave birth to four characters. I look at them all around me, and its life-joy to see through them to God.

It was easy when youngest of all bent all blond curl, hands and knees on sidewalk, to watch roly-poly’s bend into little grey balls and then unfold and move a few inches. And how I, too, slowed to watch patient with her just in case they should do something rather spectacular like crawl extra fast, which they didn’t ever.  And it’s easy still to see when she strums guitar and sings beautiful like she did last night. Easy to see through laughter tears. I fumble urgent faith through change, stripping, falling leaves and there tug hard on naked hope.

It is called blessed, all this. This seeing through to God.

It is called life-joy and satisfaction, all this regarding God, regardless and because.

Because it’s all wrapped up in God-hope.

And that means a tree load in the back yard of this little life.

 

written by: Carolyn Roehrig