The Candle of Hope

"I had about given up hope".  

"Oh, I hope we win"

"What are you hoping for - a boy or a girl?"

How many times do we hear the word HOPE used? Webster defines it as cherish a desire with anticipation.  Sometimes it means to trust.  It's an important word in Scripture, appearing more than 100 times.  I have a couple favorites.


Jeremiah 29:11
 For I know the plans I have for you, declares the LORD, plans for   welfare and not  for evil, to give you a future and a  hope.

I Peter 1:3
 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ!
 According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again
 to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the   dead.

Christmas, 1982  - We were new to the role of single-parent family and I was having a very difficult time with planning and financing Christmas.  

I had no idea that two of my children wanted bicycles.  But in Sunday School a few weeks before Renee who was eight and her five-year-old brother, Tray answered the question when their teacher asked for prayer requests.

It was for bicycles.  They were hoping for bicycles. In our family, we prayed about everything.

You can imagine my surprise, two days before Christmas,  when their Sunday School teacher and her husband arrived at our door - with two bicycles.

Please don't misunderstand, me I don't think every prayer is answered so easily.  I have always been glad however that m children understood the value of praying for all things - believing - or in this case HOPING.

There have been many times in my life when I felt like there was no hope.  There were times that I came close to giving up hope.  But I recently heard these words:

  "Hope begins when you stand in the dark looking out at the light"

So I light one candle on the Advent Wreath and watch the flame flicker.  

That's really what the candle of hope is about   I can only TRUST that what I hope for will come to past.  That must have been how Mary and Joseph felt.  What a scary time.  And yet, they followed what they believed to be was God's Will for their lives.  I really hope I will always do that.

Ann Nesmith Beardslee - 4/3/29; Elizabeth Nesmith Weitzel - 6/14/37
Iva Nesmith Huffingham - 3/12/23; Carolyn Nesmith Capp - 7/12/27
not picture - Thelma Nesmith Wakeman - 8/5/25 - 11/5/11

And speaking of HOPING -- I think all of my Mercer-Nesmith cousins HOPE we look like this when we have passed our 80th birthday.  We have a great legacy of hope that is passed through them from our Grandparents - Ellie and Pauline Mercer Nesmith.  One of the things Granddaddy wanted us to practice is the faith, hope and love of that baby born to Mary more than 2,000 years ago.

He is HOPE!

May your life be filled with enough sunshine

to make you appreciate the shadows