A Thrill of Hope

When I look back on this past year in preparation to evaluate all that’s happened and make plans for my 2024 hopes and dreams, I find myself at a loss. This past year has felt like five different lives all taking me down a divergent path. If you were with me at the beginning of the year, you know the word I chose was “enchantment,” and my family and I certainly danced our way through enchanting things, both large and small. But there were also downed branches along the way that made us lose our footing, thunderstorms that both threatened and delivered on their promises, gnats of confusion, anxiety, and depression that found their way into the honey jar of life.

And before I knew it, I was lost in the woods.

For months leading up to Christmas, I found myself groping around in the dirt for any semblance of a breadcrumb trail, desperately trying to find my way to the safety and security of the magic tree house I knew was tucked away deep within the forest. And once its ladder was within reach, I barely had a firm grasp around the smooth hand carved rung when I found myself quickly sinking in the quagmire of family illness which led to unmet expectations during the holiday season.

Today was supposed to be the day. The day that I sat down and wrote my 2024 word of the year blog post. I tried to appraise the journey of the last year. And I tried to scout out the path ahead. And even though I already know what my words are, all of the emotions of both past disappointment and future hope surged inside of me, and I felt as though I wasn’t ready for that post. I somehow needed a prologue.

During my quiet time, I prayed for God to give me some guidance. To help me put flesh to the bones of all my thoughts. As I sat in the silence, the capering between the victories and losses of 2023 began to fade and a thrill of hope for the 2024 year began to rise.

A thrill of hope.

And while it’s fun to hold on to the kind of hope that gives me a feeling of expectation for the future, the hope which I am most steadily clinging to is the one that refers to a feeling of trust.

Hope is a beautiful thing. But a God-inspired hope says that no matter what happens, I can trust him.

So that’s what I’m praying for all of you. That you will entwine yourselves with the type of hope that gives you the perspective that you are never in the forest to begin with. You are in the palm of his hand.