Hope

by Donna Poole

As I write, the winter wind’s howling outside my window, and school is cancelled for the third day three in a row. Our back roads are a mess of frozen mud and drifted snow, but we’ve seen hopeful signs of spring here in Michigan.

Snowdrops are the first flowers to poke their brave heads above ground, defying winter winds with their fragile strength. A few days after they appeared a half-foot of snow covered them and said, “Take that!” The resilient flowers took it and will be just as lovely when the snow melts, perhaps even lovelier. They are flowers that never disappoint hope.

The red-winged blackbirds are back, and some people have even seen robins, not just the few that somehow over-winter here, but trees full of them. It’s a bit early for robins; I start looking for them around Mom’s birthday, March 13. Mom left us for heaven when I was twenty-five, so I don’t think of her everyday anymore, but I think of her when I see my first robin and hear the spring birds sing. Mom’s favorite song was, “God Will Take Care of You.”

The spring peepers will sing before the birds, and that could happen any day now. When I get out of the car on a March evening I pause and listen for them; in the distance they sound like sleigh bells. My heart dances when I hear the peepers!

The days are getting longer, and I exclaim about that often enough to drive the people who live with me crazy, but I can’t help it. It’s an undeniable sign of hope fulfilled. I’ve lived through another winter, and through enough winters that I no longer take a single thing about spring for granted. Nothing is lovelier than renewed hope in the spring.

Spring is coming, so even when the wind chill approaches zero like it is today, I’m ready to sing.

We’ve had so many blessings this past week that our hearts are singing with gratitude. We’ve had burdens too, but I don’t really feel like talking about them. I’d rather tell you about the blessings.

I guess I’ll have to share some burdens though, or you won’t understand the blessings. We don’t tell people everything. John has been pastor of our country church here at the corner of two-dirt roads for forty-five years now, and we know these people. They are not be trusted. If they know we need something, they’ll dig deep into their own too empty pockets and do something about it. So, we tell God, but we don’t tell them.

Sunday, we had to tell. Our old van broke down in the church parking lot after everyone left Sunday morning. John tried to move it out of the way with our even older truck, but the van was in park, and the key refused to turn, so the truck struggled to help but only made things worse. There the van stubbornly sat, sideways, in the way, and obviously in need of repair.

“Sorry the van’s in the way,” John apologized to the congregation Sunday night. “I’ll get a wrecker up here tomorrow and get it home or to the mechanic.”

That afternoon John and I had wondered if we should even repair the van; she with all her old-lady ailments, and her sister, our other old van, about keep Glory to God in business. Yes, that’s actually the name of the place that fixes our vehicles. I think they say, “Glory to God!” every time we call them, and we groan something else every time see the bill. They’re good to us though, and keep expenses to a minimum, and give us a discount.

Two days earlier we’d brought the other old van home from Glory to God; I, perhaps irreverently, shorten it to G 2 G. That repair hadn’t been cheap.

The month had surprised us with several unexpected expenses. A lifetime of living with John at these country corners has given me an education in faith. When I flunk the class and start to worry, John says, “Go ahead and worry, Donna. I would, if I were you. After all, God has let us down so many times before.”

John preached a good sermon that Sunday evening, and I tried not to worry about the van. Afterward, a couple who attends only on Sunday evenings because they go to their own church on Sunday mornings, gave us a car. You read that correctly, gave us a car! We were so shocked we could hardly speak. Talk about seeing someone be the hands, feet, and heart of Jesus!

Monday came and with it bill-paying time. Money usually available for bills wasn’t there this time.

“Okay, John, what are we going to do?”

John smiled; I knew he’d prayed, but he even he looked a little worried. He walked out to the mailbox later.

“Bill, bill, advertisement, hey—I don’t know what this is. You got a card or something.”

He tossed an envelope into my lap. I opened it and read a sweet, encouraging card from people we’d known long ago. “God has put you on our hearts lately….” 

“What’s this?” our daughter, Kimmee, asked. She picked up something that had fallen out of the card. I hadn’t noticed it.

It was a check for more than enough to cover the bills waiting to be paid.

And a few days later our daughter and son-in-law bought us a new mattress for our bed.

A car? A check? A mattress? All in one week?

I don’t want you to get the idea I think material blessings are a sign of God’s favor and lack of them is a sign of His displeasure. I don’t buy into that health-wealth-materialism gospel. It didn’t seem to work out too well for Jesus or the apostles.

God always takes care of His children, but it may not look like it to us at the time.

Remember I told you Mom liked the song, “God Will Take Care of You”? God took care of Mom when she had excellent health and worked circles around the energizer bunny. God took care of her when she had her first stroke in her forties and lost the use of her right arm and partial use of her right leg. And God took care of Mom when a brutal second stroke took her from us before she reached her mid-fifties.

God took great care of us this week with a car, a huge check, and a new mattress. God was taking just as good care of us long ago when we stood in the grocery store aisle discussing whether to put back the coffee or the toilet paper because there wasn’t money for both. No money fell from the sky; we put back the coffee. And God will still be taking care of us if we stand in the grocery store aisle again regretfully putting back the coffee so we can buy the toilet paper.

When John Wesley was dying, he said, “The best of all is God is with us.”

Having God, we have everything. We have hope. Hope is the only thing we can’t live without.

When storms of any kind come, physical, financial, emotional, or spiritual, God sometimes rescues His children. More often He rides the storm out with them. He helps them find beauty for ashes, joy for mourning, and hope when all seems lost.

The days are longer; the snowdrops will survive this storm; the red winged blackbirds have come back to Michigan.

And we are pilgrims, singing our way Home, thanking God for our county roads, and saying with Emily Dickinson,

“Hope is the thing with feathers

That perches in the soul,

And sings the tune without the words,

And never stops at all.”