hope

we have been hearing a lot about hope in the past few months. as the election ramped up to a crazy fervor, back in November it seemed like 'hope' was the word on a lot of minds. you still see it everywhere on bumper stickers- Obama's face with those simple four letters underneath.

and as I watched the inauguration today on TV, sitting in the resident room at WakeMed hospital, I did feel hopeful. i believe our new President is a smart, thoughtful and Godly man who will lead our country well. but as he alluded to in his address, life doesn't always present us with obvious reasons to hope.

talking to my best friend from college today on the phone, we were reminding ourselves of that fact.
i spent a lot of the past 6 months feeling very UNhopeful about many things, foremost my career in medicine. and she had a difficult pregnancy complicated by health problems, and so a lot of the time our conversations have been more tear-fests than hope rallies!
but she said something today that was wonderful; she was talking about her little baby Vera and said that when she was feeling miserable during pregnancy, God didn't neccesarily answer her prayers right then, but He answered them through Vera.

isn't that beautiful? and so true of the rest of life. our hope is not always in our changed circumstances but in our relationships with others-- and of course with Him.

just some thoughts for a snowy inauguration day!