Hope is everywhere we look, but many of us are looking in the wrong place and to the wrong person for hope. For me, hope is found in the sparkling eyes of our grandchildren. They are hope for a bright and promising future. Hope is found in the rose bush that is currently dormant. It will bloom again in the spring, but right now it’s just waiting for its time. Hope is in the cardinals that hop around outside my window. They trust in their Creator to provide for them, and sometimes we help out by putting out bird seed for them. Hope…it’s in the trusting and waiting that hope is really found.

God is the God of hope. As we trust in Him, then we can have hope and the bonus of joy and peace. Thursday was a hard day for us here at the Watts household. We were awakened before six with the carbon monoxide detector beeping because the electricity had gone off. We waited quietly in bed for a few minutes, hoping it would flash back on, but since it didn’t, I got up and called Dominion Virginia Power. I went through a bunch of automated hoops and was ultimately told that I was the first one to report an outage and there was no estimated time of restoration. Knowing it was in the low teens outside, I fed our cat and went back to our warm bed. About nine, I got up again to a much colder house (it was about 58 degrees at that time, according to our thermometer on the wall of our bedroom), so I got my phone and checked the outage map. No info there, so I called Dominion again. This time, there was a technical issue, so I got to talk to a live person. She was very considerate and kind and said she did not know an estimated time of restoration but there were others out in our area. A few hours later, I checked the outage map again, found out that in our rural area, there were 160 people without electricity and the technicians were out trying to find the problem. The estimated time of restoration was by one o’clock. So, I bundled up and sat in my chair to take my blood pressure so I could take my morning meds. That done, I took my bundled self back to bed, with the temperature in the mid 50’s in the house now. I fell asleep for about an hour, got up and checked the outage map again. It had changed slightly. Now, only 111 were without power, so some had their problem fixed, just not us. I contacted the people in our small group from church and asked for prayer. Harry had surgery on Wednesday and was not feeling well enough to venture out to someplace warmer. So, we stayed in and bundled up as much as possible. One friend from church offered to let us come stay with her, which was very kind and offered hope (just in case Dominion couldn’t get the power back on that day). I was sitting in my chair with four layers on (blankets and jackets plus clothes and winter underwear) when I suddenly saw our digital frames come on. Then, I heard the heater start. Praise God! Our electricity came back on at almost exactly one p.m. Wonder how Dominion did that? So, I waited until the house got over 60 degrees and started to shed layers. I turned the breaker back on for the water heater. (Did you know that when the electricity goes off you are supposed to turn off the breaker for the water heater so the element doesn’t burn up? A good plumber friend told us that long ago when we first moved into our countryside dwelling.) Anyway, by 3 p.m., the house was warm, the hot water was restored, the electronic gadgets had been reset and I was finally able to do my online devotional. The plan is always to do my devotionals first thing in the morning before I get distracted or busy, but Thursday was a crazy day. Taking care of Harry, electrical issues, electronics issues and the cat kept me busy for a while. So, what does all of this have to do with hope? I HOPED that the power company would get the electricity back on soon and be safe as they worked. In fact, I prayed for the safety of the linemen that were out in the very cold weather trying to help me and 159 other families. I had HOPE that if our electricity did not return before dark, we could go to Bonnie’s house, about fifteen minutes away, and have warmth and light. Through it all, I had HOPE that God was with us and would keep us safe. And He did! We were not particularly comfortable in our many layers, but we were safe and warm enough that we could fall asleep in the middle of the crisis. I have to confess that I was not feeling especially joyful, but I didn’t feel frantic or out-of-sorts which is my usual go-to mood when things don’t go as planned. Instead, I felt peace, knowing that God was in control, of the weather, the electricity, the linemen and us as well as all the others in the same powerless condition as us.

Once the power came back on and I was doing my devotional, a truth struck me. We are all powerless without God, unable to function as we should and to carry on with our daily life because we aren’t plugged into our power source. He is our only source of hope in a life that has some unexpected surprises sometimes.