“Thank you, God, for another day, for opening up my eyes and ears to see and hear the goodness you have left here for me. Amen.” I love this short prayer I found in my reading yesterday. I don’t know who composed it. How depressing it would be to live in darkness and never see all of nature’s color. Imagine trying to describe a rainbow as a colorful smile in the heavens.

The Lord created another beautiful day and left it for Mother Nature and Father Sky to paint. They blessed the day with warm golden sunshine and a crisp blue sky decorated with the white rounded clouds of a children’s picture book. The peacefulness of a quiet summer day hugs me as I sit on the porch and listen to the bird symphonies. A celebration of yellow sunshine surrounds my flower garden and I see a new painting today as more sunflowers and zinnias open their colorful blooms. Lots of butterflies and bumble bees in the garden. I’m mesmerized by the butterflies and their tap dances on the zinnias. I love that they let me get close to them and watch them open and close their wings. Maybe they are closing their wings in prayer when they sit so still.

The hot sidewalk made me dance to the mailbox. Thought about calling my walk to the mailbox a rain dance but I didn’t have my jingle bells with me. Had two porch guests late afternoon and we enjoyed our conversations and the wondrous cool breeze. They left with a few tomatoes and promises of another visit. The heat ran me back in the house to my reading chair.

The sunset was so pretty tonight. The sun was a glorious bright ball of yellow as she rolled down the horizon. The sky was full of skinny rounded clouds watercolor brushed in pink and blue and purple. As the dusk crept up the street the clouds pulled apart like taffy and quickly disappeared. If you blinked you would have missed the parade of their vivid pastel colors.

The moon, dressed as a luminous crescent, woke early and was already hanging high in the dark blue sky of dusk when Father Sky went to wake him. The twinkling stars had to hurry to the moon and take their places on the velvet black canvas of the night’s sky. The day ended and the night began.

When I picked up one of my books about quotes tonight the book opened to a quote about hope. “Hope is like the sun. When it’s behind the clouds, it’s not gone, you just have to find it.” — Matthew. I think we define hope as wanting something to happen or be true. Theology defines hope as “to trust in, wait for, look for, or desire something or someone; or to expect something beneficial in the future.” Genuine hope in God is powerful.

Our hope rests on the fulfillment of what we believe as Christians. I believe hope is a gift from God that let’s us know he will keep his promises to help us on difficult journeys. We don’t whine when life’s boulders block our path, we have hope on our journey because we know God will clear the path or show us a different way to go. Hope will give us light in the darkness and the strength to carry on. Romans 15:13 reads, “Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that you will abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.”

“Biblical hope isn’t a desire for something good to happen. It is a confident expectation and desire for something good in the future,” John Pipin. We have hope and expectations of eternal life in heaven with our loved ones who have gone before us. Our hope as Christians gives us strength to face life challenges. We trust in the power of the Holy Spirit and that trust gives us joy and peace. We always have hope in tomorrow.

“Hope is being able to see that there is light despite all of the darkness.” — Desmond Tutu