You know it’s the car ride home when you hear these lyrics. In all seriousness, we have a playlist on our phones titled “Car Ride Home”! It’s full of bluegrass songs from the Franz Family. We recently discovered it’s the only music that soothes our son on the car ride home. I’m amazed but not surprised at this because I love bluegrass music and listened to lots of it during my pregnancy; so much so we had instrumental bluegrass playing in the background at our baby shower. But I digress!
It’s humorous to be listening to bluegrass music in the car while tackling unending motorbikes, long u-turn line back ups, trucks carrying baskets stacked miles high, stray dogs…then there’s the overwhelming sight of thousands of store shop signs unreadable to us yet, food carts and automobiles parked in the street to grab a bite, spirit houses with designated bright flowers, burning incense, and other offerings, the beautiful mountain of Doi Suthep- what seems like the only constant land mark….
We’re not in Kansas anymore!
But even then, there’s no familiar place or people or anything as constant and unchanging and faithful and true as the L Himself- and two life-changing events in one year has been plenty to bring us to our knees and open our eyes to where our hope and peace lie.
Suddenly, a little life is in your hands and you realize how precious and finite human life is and time is unbelievably swift as he grows at unspeakable amounts to where in a few months you wonder how he even fit inside you. Suddenly, your eyes behold a world unknown and you realize how small you are and time is unbelievably swift as a day goes by and you went to one store and brought back one thing on your list and only used one new vocabulary word to where you wonder what your purpose is.
And you want to hope in something, to find peace in- your gifts, your abilities, your role, your productivity, your family, your future, your progress, your old life, your new life, your expectations, your routine, your schedule, your personality, your friends, your neighbors, your ethnicity, your riches, your ministry, your health, your looks, your hobbies, your wisdom, your work, your spirituality, your education, your home, your nationality, yourself…
And you hit a wall. Because they’re all good things, but all fleeting things, things we all too often don’t realize we have our hopes in until they’re taken or shoveled or flipped or disappoint us or change or don’t and our peace is shaken…
But for those who believe the gospel, the good news, there’s the Solid Rock, our only Source, Who never changes, never fails us. There is hope, and there is peace surpassing all understanding. Hope surer than the rising sun, because He will be our Light. Surer than the most loyal person you can think of, because He is without sin. Surer than the mountains because they will fall but His kingdom has no end. Surer than anything and anyone- Who holds out His unchanging hand to us to hold and guide and steady and lead us to our eternal home. Whose Word waits on ancient pages tried and true, to show us Who He is and His plans and Who we are and how to make sense of the world around us and of things unseen. That’s how we know. It doesn’t mean we won’t experience disappointment and heartache, joy and gratitude. It means there’s always hope. And we can have hope sure and steadfast no matter what, because it’s in C, who is sure and steadfast and perfect and never changing and ever-present and all loving and righteous judge, He Himself our Prince of Peace. When the day does or doesn’t go as you’d hoped, when a person does or doesn’t respond as you’d hoped, when your future does or doesn’t look like you’d hoped, when life does or doesn’t feel like you’d hoped…hope in G! Meditate on His Word, and play a little bluegrass hymn a long the way 😉
May our hope be built on nothing less than His blood and righteousness in this new year- Happy 2018!
In His strength for today and bright hope for tomorrow, Sarah Lynn
