Wednesday, November 26, 2008

Day Three - Hope

Wednesday, November 26, 2008
Day Three – What happened to Tuesday?
I open my eyes to a new day. The sun is about to rise on the continent of our hope. 
Hope, it’s a wonderful thing isn’t it? You don’t realize it’s value until you’ve lost it.
I’ve been challenged with a thought this past year. Here it is. Your faith can only be as big as your hope. For faith is the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not yet seen, the writer of the book of, “Hebrews” tells us.
"Hope" has also bounced around a family conversation as the girls have bantered back and forth. Tessa, Alacia, and Emmy all have significant ‘nouns’ as middle names. I have heard them throwing around the idea of making sure their new sister receives a similar name. Tessa’s middle name is Joy, Lacey’s is Grace, and Emmy’s is Faith. It moved me when I heard them discussing the idea of wanting Tracy to carry a ‘sister’ middle name of, “Hope”. As far as I’m concerned Dad is still making the change from “Esther” so I’m not in a big hurry to complicate things any further! But, I’m willing to entertain the idea…
It’s 7:30am and we’re somewhere over Ethiopia. The African nation that first captured my attention and conscience in the mid-eighties. It was a nation and a season in which so many simply had to ask is there not something that we can do? I can remember speaking of the famine, that was ravaging much of that beautiful country, as my Senior project in speech class in high school. I can still hear my stereo playing, “We are the We World.” Somebody tell me you remember that! We all believed we could do something and should do something.
It’s time to land. I always love the feeling that I have right before I land in a new country. It's the feeling of uncharted water and a road less travelled. I want you to share that feeling with me this morning. How big is your hope? I pray that in the midst of the land of our suffering that our hope will spring eternal. I pray hope becomes our middle name as we walk these dusty roads together.
I’ve been informed that it’s time to “properly stow my carry on items and return my seat to the upright position”. So, I’ll leave you with the lyric that plays in my ears from the U2 song coincidentally titled, “Window in the Skies”.
The shackles are undone
The bullets quit the gun
The heat that’s in the sun
Will keep us when there’s none
The rule has been disproved
The stone it has been moved
The grave has become a groove
All debts have been removed
Oh can’t you see what Love has done and what it’s doing to me?
Love left a window in the skies...and to love I’ll rhapsodize.

To hope,

Jim


2 comments:

tim said...

Romack,

hey I am an offical blogger now, you are my first blog-e, is that a word. It sounds like things are good in Africa, it must be amazing to be there. I have put the words to window in skies on my wall at work for hope, it is all we have huh?
I did not go to the apple cup, I watch my dawgs coug it from the warmth of my home.
So what is the situation with Tracy?

Tessa Romack said...

Hope...what a perfect name for this little girl. She is my "Hope" cause if she can get through what she has been through, i sure as heck and tough enough to take on my own struggles.

Loves, Tess