All my life, even as a child, I have had a complicated relationship with hope. When I was young and in persistently painful
circumstances, I remember making efforts to not hope for better. Hope was painful. Disappointment crushed my spirit. I wanted to be safe. I wanted to not have to be afraid, to be able to rest in love and acceptance. I was broken, but as much as I tried to reconcile myself to a life of brokenness, I could not escape a nagging sense of hope.

Somewhere, Life existed. Somewhere there was Love. Somehow, the Power to heal and restore my heart and spirit was available. And yet, the hope of these things was frightening in itself.

I believe that the hope that kept breaking through my myopic pain came through the prayers of a grandma who lived far away, and who loved a Jesus who was always near. Her heart cry produced a divine whisper of hope in my life. A gentle call. Persistent. Terrifying. Real.

It was a hope rooted in the most hopeless of events. The crucifixion and death of Jesus Christ. Who but a fool would hold onto hope while placing a dead body into a tomb? Surely hope would die with the grind of the stone rolling into place.

And yet.

Easter.

He’s not in the tomb anymore. He’s alive. The craziest hope, the unimaginable, the wonderful, happened. Where there was death, now there is Life. Life that is for me, Life that is in me. Life that shines through me.

Jesus is alive, He has risen, and because of that fact I am free to revel in hope, to celebrate it, to embrace it and sing it out loud.

Jesus is alive and I am deeply and eternally in love with Him, and in Him I hope. And live. And move. And have my being.

Happy Easter!