Hope

I was doing my everyday thing the other day. Trying to balance taking care of a house and taking care of my kids and feeling like I was losing the battle on both sides. I had plopped the baby in his bassinet upstairs to throw some laundry in the washer and he really did not appreciate it. After a few wails, I stopped a looked at him. Maybe a song would help. The Robbie Seay Band's Song of Hope was in my head, so I sang...

I will sing a song of hope
Sing along
God of heaven come down
Heaven come down
Just to know you and be loved is enough
God of heaven come down
Heaven come down

His chubby face just lit up so instantly it was almost comical. So I sang the whole song, complete with some dance moves. Annabelle joined me, as this is her favorite song and her singing was probably why it was stuck in my head to begin with. Who knows what Joey was getting into at that particular moment. Oh well. Two out of three ain't bad.

As we finished our impromptu concert and I continued with the laundry, the song stayed with me. What a fitting song for Christmas time, I thought. A time when we celebrate a God who really did come down to earth as a little baby named Jesus. A baby just like mine. A God who gave us a never failing source of hope. And in knowing His love we find everything we need. Why is it so easy to forget that? Why is it so easy to get lost in my circumstances on this earth, circumstances that seem to be pretty good and yet I still tend to focus on the negative?

Sometimes I catch myself comparing my life to others' lives and feel guilty. I have so much compared to so many in the world. My life looks pretty good on paper- a healthy family, loving family and friends, an awesome church, a roof over my head, food to eat, enough money to pay the bills... So why don't I jump for joy every morning as I get out of bed? Is there something wrong with me? With that little Song of Hope moment, God seemed to say, "Yes! And there will always be something wrong until you get to heaven and spend eternity with me! I made you to long for a perfection that you will never be able to achieve on your own. You were designed to need Me. When you feel this way, stop throwing pity parties for yourself, stop feeling sorry for others, and instead recognize that this ache is just a way to draw close to Me and remember the hope I promised you."

Romans 8:22-25 says it like this:
We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what he already has? But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently.

I have come to love blogging and those I have met in our little blogging community so very much. It seems that each day I walk away encouraged and I am reminded of the hope I need to hold close. Thank you all for that! And if you're reading this post and my talk of Jesus and Christianity and all this stuff about hope doesn't make sense to you, I would love to tell you more. (Just send me an email.) I can't promise to know all the answers to your questions, but I can tell you why a little baby Jesus born over 2000 years ago means so much to me.

Merry Christmas! Sing a song of hope!




P.S. I found an accoustic version of Song of Hope here. I think I like it more than the original, although the video distracts me a bit...if pretty pictures cause you to have an inner dialogue that is louder than the message of the song...just push play and scroll up so you don't see the video. Maybe that's just me...