Hope.

It’s a word that’s been popping up around me lately like so much hyacinth in spring. “Hope against hope”…”I’m about to give up hope”…”All we can do is hope”…”It’s my last hope”…”The Audacity of Hope”…and on and on.

As I’ve mentioned before, God tends to speak to me through repetition, mercifully tending to my need to hear things again and again before they finally sink in. I’ve been wondering why the word “hope” was being thrown at me, as things have seemed to be on a fairly even keel of late. As of this morning, I know. The troubling situation at my husband’s office, has suddenly reared its ugly head once again; this time in the form of a suit. This is something that we knew was a possibility and we’ve been assured that his company’s attorneys will handle everything. However, no matter how you slice it, a law suit is frightening and not just a little foundation-shaking. It’s a time when “hope” becomes a very important word.

Hope [hohp]

  1. the feeling that what is wanted can be had or that events will turn out for the best.
  2. to look forward with desire and reasonable confidence
  3. to place trust; rely
  4. a person or thing in which expectations are centered

When the papers were served, I was in the middle of organizing some pictures on my computer. I happened to be working my way through the photos from my mystery anniversary trip. One day during that trip, we were standing on the beach at Carmel, just below the famed Pebble Beach Golf Course.

I was facing the water, trying to get a flock of seagulls to cooperate for a photo opp.

Unbeknownst to me, Hubs had climbed up to the top of the shoreline to watch a group of golfers that were playing through. I looked side to side and, not seeing him, turned to look behind me.

With an eye cast upward, I found him. Then, bringing my gaze straight down, I beheld a name that had been scratched into the rock of the shoreline.

It took my breath away.

I thought, when I snapped it, that this picture was perfect for a great blog post and I mentally tucked it away for just such a purpose. But, interestingly, I’ve never used it. In fact, I haven’t even looked at it since those days immediately following our trip. How precious that my God would choose to bring it back to light, today, of all days…a snapshot captured just for me of my husband standing on the “solid rock”, the only TRUE HOPE.

My hope is built on nothing less
Than Jesus’ blood and righteousness
I dare not trust the sweetest frame,
But wholly lean on Jesus’ name
On Christ the Solid Rock, I stand,
All other ground is sinking sand,
All other ground is sinking sand.