A new one.
Blogs always seem like a good idea to me. An instant outlet; possibility of routine. It's not that I haven't been writing... I have a closet full of "scribblers" as my friend Mary Fay calls them. Pen to page is a daily occurance.
What is it about a public diary? A project. A focus. Don't hold your breath, I tell myself as I write this... you may just not be a blogger.
Being far from home is still as close as ever and lately memories of physical farness from home are popping to mind as I think on hope. Scripture says that hope that is seen isn't hope at all. Hope is a dangerous and beautiful thing. Nothing will wreck your heart like hope unfulfilled. And nothing will strengthen your faith like being asked to continue to hope anyway.
I was walking this morning by Lake Banook and the rowers were out training - their movements in perfect time to the soundtrack on my iPod. Children were splashing on the beach and old people occupied the benches scattered along the path. I was thrown back to winter in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan. Where it is always winter, but never Christmas, my brother used to joke with me. I remember one 40 below day where the snow drifts covered the concrete steps of our military row house - I was feeling particularly resentful of the place. I put on my boots, my winter parka, covered every inch of skin that I could and opened the door. I jumped off of the front steps and began to trek out into the cold. Inside the hood of my parka with my mouth muzzled by a scarf, I screamed and cried and trudged through the field in front of our house. The field met a line of trees and there in the snow I found a piece of paper. A moving box label from one of the many other displaced military wives stuck out of the snow. With gloved hand, I freed it and read the words written sloppily in black sharpie: HOPE CHEST STUFF.
I wanted to know what stuff. I imagined the woman who wrote these words wandering around in her basement, frantically opening boxes looking for the contents of her hope chest.
The things that I was hoping for at the time couldn't be placed in a box with a label. Many of those things have come to pass - the beauty of the place that I live in, a closeness to Christ, strength in the midst of my ever changing home.
I find myself again, despite the beauty around me, despite the strength I've gained, in a place that could mistakingly be labeled discontentment. I believe it's hope. In a home - this earth - that is longing for change itself, for perfection, for redemption, how can it be otherwise?
My hope chest is, I'm finding, is always with me... directly beneath my collar bone and settled just above my waistline. Expanding and contracting as the journey continues. Filling and emptying as life and circumstance have their way; as faith triumphs and as faith fails.
