hope.

I am the queen of big dreams. Large, unrealistic, impossible things that I want to see happen. Albeit, the vast majority of these dreams are short lived. I once wanted to be a concert pianist until I delved into a Rachmaninoff piece. I was certain for years that I would marry Prince William, simply to have my dreams violently crushed by Kate Middleton. Needless to say, many of the ideas I have pop into my head are short lived, and with good reason. They have little bearing to reality. They are fun for a moment, but they are not soul feelings, not spirit desires.

I think again to the things I desire most. Many of them are as unrealistic, as outlandish to the outside world as my nuptials to Prince William. Why is it, then, that I continue to hold onto the belief that they will one day happen? From my desire to see teenage girls free from the bonds of eating disorders and destructive self-image mindsets, to my quest to find love against all odds, why are there some, seemingly impossible desires that I cannot drive away? Some things I have others try to talk me out of on a daily basis. Sometimes I think they are right. I mean I do have a minor in philosophy and most logicians would agree that I am far from thinking in the realms of reality on these issues. Still...there is a nagging ache within my heart that tells me to believe despite all my better judgement, beyond all the voices screaming from the outside... because there is a place where logic and intellect fail, and hope takes over. Hope takes over because some things are so beautiful, so big, so transcendental that they offer a place for a modern-day miracle, something that defies the laws of location, place, time...and our better judgement.

William Sloan Coffin once said, "Hope arouses, as nothing else can arouse, a passion for the possible." A burning desire to believe in something greater than your capacity, greater often than what we believe our calling is. Something so great, so mighty. A feeling so rare and inexplicable that we have no choice but to call it divine. As if Heaven has made an allowance to let us feel part of it's splendor. Simply to think about the possibility of this hope brings life to us. Nourishes us. Pushes us through seemingly impossible odds, walls, circumstances, and critics, just to get a chance to try.

Do  you know this feeling? I believe at some point we all do. The weight of a God-given calling. The intensity of a love that seems so impossible, yet so immediate. The inner knowing that you must give of yourself, even at the risk of being hurt. Although we are daily called to new, to greater things...there are those moments, those desires that define who we are and who we will become. Sadly, most give up on hope because hope doesn't pay up on their timeframe. Maybe the person they had banked on being happy with leaves. Perhaps their dream encounters setback after setback. Maybe we just get tired. Sometimes it is easier to hope for something we can actually see, or something that makes more sense. 

The prophet Isaiah speaks these words, 

For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts. (55:8-9)

Everything truly great that has ever been done for the Kingdom of God, for the cause of love, for the betterment of humanity, or for the satisfaction of a soul has met great adversity. No one has a golden ticket to their destiny. Vincent McNabb put it this way, "Hope is some extraordinary spiritual grace that God gives us to control our fears, not to oust them." 

Whether that deep desire within you is to see a dream come to life, to see revival break out in your city, to see a family member accept grace, or to see love conquer all, I assure you it will never come without a great price. I remember very well one great roadblock I reached on the road to one of urgent cries of my heart. There is nothing more discouraging when you feel you have been called to "speak to nations," than having your voice taken away with no real hope of it coming back. I remember sitting alone in my dorm room as a 19 year old on a Sunday. I remember not being able to bring myself to drive to church. Worship, my refuge, had become something agonizing for me to experience. I went from being a worship leader to someone who could not even sing through a worship service without extreme pain. How could the thing I hoped for, the thing that I woke up thinking about and went to sleep dreaming about be to use my voice? I couldn't even sing in a congregation, much less speak to nations. I was at a dead end. I felt like hope had evaporated from my life. God had gotten it wrong to trust me with a dream that could never come to fruition...

But slowly I came to realize...

God, love, faith, and hope do not work on our time table.

For love to be pure, it must go through fire. For a dream to be appreciated, it must be tried. 

So often I find myself going back to Matthew 7:7, " Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be open to you." The problem is that, "and it will," generally takes longer than we would like. I had to reach a place where my character could sustain my calling. Where integrity could be married with my gift. My voice was created through hours of pleading with God to give me hope when it seemed the furthest thing from my psyche. You know the feeling. Desperate. Alone, even in a room crowded with people. 

I have begun to see today the fruits of something that begun as a dream in the heart of a bright eyed girl who got her world shaken. The opportunities I have been given to use my voice overseas have almost exclusively come out of the story of those two years where I battled with God over forsaking me. Although this is only the beginning of one dream planted in my heart, I remember it daily as hope that some feelings are too great to be ignored or discarded because things get difficult.

There are so many things that we do not understand. So many things that we cannot comprehend. I do not want to arrive at my 30th birthday, however, and know that I was responsible for dictating a decision that cost me the beauty of destiny. I do not want to be responsible for losing hope because it was easier to not risk loss. In some ways I think I would rather lose than never try. To lose is to feel a deep, pervading emotion, to realize the limits of our humanity, and to be forced to trust something far greater than circumstances, people, and time. 

Victor Hugo said, "Hope is the word which God has written on the brow of every man." Hope is our gift, not some mean attempt and keeping us miserable by a Heavenly Puppetmaster. To hold something in front of us that we can never have. Hope is the thing which keeps us going when everything else in life tells us to throw in the towel, it is the thing that makes millionaires billionaires after they lose their fortunes, often more than once. It is the thing that inspires legends and births great movements of history. 

Romans chapter five tells the full story: 

More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings, 

knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character,

and character produces hope, 

and hope does not disappoint us.

We want to see the hope first, before we are tried, before we have to stretch ourselves through endurance and give up personal comforts and things otherwise "permissible" to produce character. Hope is the product of discipleship, the product of relationship, and the driving force to every important thing in my life today. 

I am not telling you you must hope. I know it is often easier to take another road. But I do challenge you to arouse the passion for the possible. To quit counting the millions of reasons something cannot happen and remember the one reason which trumps every reason man doubts. The blood of Jesus Christ covers every stain of sin. The power of God which raised men from the dead and brought the life of the Savior through a simple virgin girl is awakened in the souls of those who hope above all odds. Love does conquer all and, as the Virgin Mary proclaimed, "For nothing shall be impossible with God."

I choose hope not because it is easy, but because without it my life would be void of purpose. Believe beyond and beside yourself. 

Here's hoping.