Change and Hope

"Hope and change" was the message of our president-elect's political campaign, and it obviously worked for him. And although he may not realize this, hope and change did not originate with him. In fact, all during this eventful year of 2008 while he was promising change, our family was experiencing change in significant ways, as were millions of others around the world. Our changes were mostly positive. While many are pleased to see 2008 gasping its last breaths, our family will remember it as a time of great blessing. Some of our many changes:

*The biggest, of course, was Henry's and my marriage on July 11. We're pretty happy about that one.
*We all moved into a new home together.
*After being members of a church since 2000, Katie, Jonathan, and I changed to Henry's church.
*Henry began a new job this fall.
*Katie started her senior year and has been considering her next big change: college. She also became a licensed driver in 2008.
*Jonathan graduated from eighth grade and started attending West Michigan Lutheran High School this fall.

The truth is, no matter who we are or what our life circumstances, we all experienced some type of change this year--some good, some not so good. Which brings me to the next concept: hope.

It's fairly easy to have hope in a year like the one we've just experienced, when everything is going well. There have been years past when it hasn't been so easy to have hope, and we've stood by friends and family members this year who have endured some difficult changes: they've lost spouses, children, jobs, their health.

Yet if change is a certainty, so is hope. Not hope in a government bailout, or in a new president, or in the positive results of a war that has gone on for a long time. We'll always have the poor with us; there will always be wars and rumors of wars. And let's just say that I can't seem to muster up much hope that this president will perform better than I'm anticipating.

This is the hope that is every bit as certain as change: "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, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you" (1 Peter 1:3, emphasis mine).

This is hope that will not change.

A blessed 2009 to you.

Lord, through all the generations of the children of our race,
In our fears and tribulations, thou hast been our dwelling place.
Ere the vast and wide creation by thy word was caused to be,
Or the mountains held their station, thou art God eternally.