Hope

Hope on Saturday

/ Jami Stroud / Leave a comment

I woke up this morning well before my alarm. I got up, let my dog out, and started a pot of coffee. I sat on down on the couch and pulled out my Bible to read about the Empty Tomb, and the bumbling confused disciples, and the women whom Jesus appeared to first, and his graciousness in appearing to Thomas, who couldn’t believe without seeing, and Peter’s pure joy in seeing Jesus once more as he rushed through the water to greet him. 

As I was reflecting on the scripture I stared out the window at the snow gently falling on the ground, knowing that there was likely 5 inches of it coming our way. Yesterday it was warm and sunny and lovely, and my nose was still red from spending the day outside. 

Typically, snow is my least favorite form of precipitation, but with nowhere to go but my home and Easter Morning in my midst, I was thankful for the reminder that the snow brings, “Though your sins are like scarlet, I will make them as white as snow.” (Isaiah 1:18)

Oh, how much can change in a day!

On Saturday, the disciples and those close to Jesus were mourning his death. They were wondering what it was all for, what it all meant. None of them could imagine that this could possibly be the plan. That anything good can come from this. 

Then, with the rise of the sun, two women were face to face with an empty tomb and then face to face with their risen savior. Everything had changed and they ran to tell the good news. 

Perhaps you don’t understand what it all means, or what the plan is, or why it is happening. You might be grieving a job, or your community, or your freedom. And there is space for that – we’re having a dark Saturday. 

But we live knowing what happens on Sunday morning.
We live knowing good news that the two women ran to tell their friends. 

We know that hope is alive.

Jesus meets us in our grief, in our doubt, in our unbelief, in our confusion. He meets us with nail-pierced hands and spear-pierced sides. He meets us on the other side of the grave and the darkness. He meets us in a pandemic. 

He comes, shining bright and alive, bringing freedom and offering hope. 

And that’s where we get to live – even though it’s our dark Saturday, we live in it with hope.

Organize

/ Jami Stroud / Leave a comment

I love organization. I love the feeling I get after a good organizing job. I love the way it looks, the clean, orderly look of the finished product.

I don’t know if you have ever organized anything (I really hope you have, because otherwise, I am afraid for what your life looks like), but organization takes work. It’s a process. You usually start with a mess (i.e. the need to organize), and then in order to truly get organized you create what looks like even more of a mess. If someone came into your bedroom while you were reorganizing your closet, they would likely find you in the midst of piles of shoes, clothes, jewelry, coats, luggage, forgotten memorabilia, among whatever else you people keep in your closets.

This person walking in might say, “Wow, looks like a real mess in here”. But you know better. You have a system. You’re in the midst of a process of taking a mess and making it better, making it the best it can be.

I have found this same process to be true of my walk with God. He saved me when I was still just a mess (Romans 5:8). And now, as I walk with Him, he is organizing me – and what a process it is. I have no doubt that outsiders look at me and think, “That girl has to get her life together! Not even using her degree, unmarried, seemingly going nowhere!”. And to be honest, when I look at my own life, it often feels like a bit of a mess, as well. I have not ended up where I thought I would, and I have no idea what lies ahead.

But what I do know, is that God is in the process of “organizing” me. I might think everything looks like a mess, but God has a system – a methodical plan with a glorious end result. And step by step, I am being organized into a more beautiful version of who He has created me to be. 

“We can rejoice, too, when we run into problems and trials, for we know that they help us develop endurance. And endurance develops strength of character, and character strengthens our confident hope of salvation.” – Romans 5:3-4