How to Face Winter with Hope

I pulled out the note and read it again.

“Sandy, I love you so much. I pray for you. Please come to me. Please give me hope.”

Oh, Sophonie, don’t you know that Jesus is your only hope?

I’d considered not going back. We’d had a busy year, and I was feeling my years, and there was so much to do and so many needs right here at home. And the holidays were coming. And winter. And I was tired.

But the orphans had had a hard and transitional year, too. I was pretty sure they were tired. And they had so many needs, not the least of which was to know they mattered, that they were—are—loved. That someone else (like me) could set aside their own needs for a week and go to where the need was greater.

And that’s how I I found myself at the airport in Nashville, Tennessee, again this past December, dragging heavy, gift-filled, yellow-taped duffle bags to Delta’s check-in counter. It’d be my fourth year of joining a team headed for Haiti to carry Christmas to an orphanage. We were going to be Jesus with skin, to carry a little winter hope, to tell the story of hope, and to hopefully tuck a little dose of hope in little hearts. I didn’t know how much hope I’d carry home in my own heart . . .

Will you join me over at The Consilium today–on my birthday–for the rest?

Because I’M BACK. And I’ve missed you.

In the stillness,

Sandy