Hope of a Dreamer

I am a dreamer. I am the hopeless romantic that always wants the guy to get the girl. I imagine life's sweetness with really good coffee in the morning and a fine glass of red wine in the evening. I always want the underdog to win and my heart gets a little sadder when they don't. I believe and yearn for reconciliation in nearly every sense of the word. I think hard conversations should have redemptive endings and that grace should always pour out from our mouths. I am the one who always wants to believe that it will all work out. I fight against broken hearts and tears of sadness. I look for the fairytale "happily ever after" in nearly every situation. I cry out for justice.

Those are the things I want. I want to start and end the day with butterflies and a good hot beverage. I want there to be no such thing as unrequited love. I want freedom for the captives and joy for the hopeless. I want reconciliation.

But what happens when those things don't come true or aren't the reality?

What happens when your coffee just sucks? When it doesn't work out? When the girl likes the guy and he likes her best friend? When conversations are just hard and nothing actually changes? When you cry just because your feelings are hurt? When the underdog loses? When there is no such thing as prince charming?

Or what happens when you have been praying for healing and nothing happens at all? Or when you were sure God assured you something was going to work out and then it doesn't happen? Or when you realize that young girls are being sold into slavery in the very country that you live in? Or when you see the brokenness of this world in the senseless murder of three students in Chapel Hill?

What happens then? Because if we're being honest, it's absolutely not what I want. Or what anyone wants really.

Our trust is this: we can know that God is still God. He is the great I AM.

And that is enough.

Our hope is in Jesus and in nothing else. It doesn't work to hope in the happily ever after, good coffee, good job interviews, fruitful conversations, or in that one thing he said two months ago. There is no hope in those things alone.

There is only hope in Jesus Christ. It is in Him that our hope becomes an anchor for the soul, firm and secure.

In Him, we hope for reconciliation, redemption, justice, truth, and love; but only in Him.