Hope is an ACTION and a CHOICE!

John Indermark in his book; Hope, Our longing for home, states that Hope is not a topic but rather an action and a choice. Hope is something we must strive for, we must make a choice every day to have hope. Hope is at the very center of our faith. But its blessings are not limited to the future; it's the home we long for as well as the place that's already ours within God's gracious realm.

Life is tough at times - really tough. This has been one of those weeks that causes one to ponder all sorts of things. We lost a dear friend and sister in Christ this week in a tragic automobile accident. Life is so precious, so fleeting. When sudden death occurs in this manner it is so devastating, troubling and numbing. It puts a cloud over everything, it consumes your thoughts. It causes you to cry out WHY LORD? Why this one? What is the meaning of this?

Psychologist's have tried to help us deal with our grief in life by offering the five stages of grief to somehow make sense of what we cannot comprehend. The five are; Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, and acceptance. People deal with grief in many different ways. But these five stages are tried and true and help us as humans to place labels on our emotions. These are helpful labels and very REAL stages of the grieving process. We need labels, we need guidance during these times - because when we are in the midst of extreme grief, we can't always get ourselves out of the quagmire and work through these emotions without these tools for guidance. In a small way these tools provide hope that there is an end to these horrible emotions. And that is a good thing.

In this case this week we have the hope that our friend was/is a sister in Christ - so we have the promise that she is in a better place and we will see her again very soon. We have the hope that tomorrow brings new light and new beginnings. We have the hope that while life happens, and it can be really tough at times, God can make good come from tragedy. We have the Hope in Jesus Christ that death, while tragic here on earth, is not the end. So we are called to celebrate the life of believers knowing that they are now in the arms of God himself and all is well in heaven! We are called to action here on earth to keep the faith and choose the hope that only Jesus Christ can offer - even in the face of horribly tragic loss of life.