Hope perches in the soul

Hope can be a small thing that latches onto your soul and holds a glimmer of light over you, taking you through the darkness that covers the land. With too many things so completely uncertain, unresolved, unanswered, unclear, I draw such hope from God's promises that I read about every day in Scripture. These words offer comfort and sometimes the kick me into gear that I need to take a leap, or to listen, or to grasp onto that hope which lies in Him.

Emily Dickinson's poem about hope rings in my ears as I think about clinging to hope. She calls it a thing with feathers...that makes a storm tire from trying to tear down the little bird. It won't be brought down. That is hope. Against a big opponent it can stand firm, because it is in Christ that our hope flies.

"Hope" is the thing with feathers-
That perches in the soul-
And sings the tune without the words-
And never stops - at all-

And sweetest- in the Gale- is heard-
And sore must be the storm-
That could abash the little bird
That kept so many warm-

I've heard it in the chillest land-
And on the strangest Sea-
Yet- never- in Extremity,
It asked a crumb of me.

-Emily Dickinson