Un-Giving Up.

Mornings. They used to be my prime time. I'd wake well before the sun, "rarin' to go", as they say. I woke, really awake and not at all zombie-like. I didn't hit the snooze button. The morning was here and I was glad. Mornings were my comfort time, the sweet spot of my day. I loved the look of my living room in the pre-dawn hours, illuminated by a lone lamp with small beaded fringe. I loved the smell of coffee (light and sweet) filling the house. I loved the feel of the little love seat I snuggled into, digging my feet between the cushions for warmth and coziness. And, most of all, more than the little lamp and the cozy love seat, even more than the coffee, I loved what came next.

After I got settled, I laid a pillow across my lap, placed my journal on one side and my bible on the other and read and journaled and prayed and read and journaled and prayed until the sun was up and it was time to get ready for work.

From this vantage point, those mornings seem like a crackly, black and white movie...recorded on VHS.

I'm not sure how, or specifically when, but those mornings were slowly picked apart and destroyed by TV at night and hitting the snooze button...and then, eventually, hitting the "giving up" button. And, since then, it seems, the fruit borne of those mornings is slowly rotting away, too.

But God...

A few cold and hazy mornings ago, I managed to get up without snoozing. I managed to read a tiny bit. I managed to get out of the door early enough to not be 3 minutes late to work. And, as I drove, I listened...to my thoughts, to the sounds of the road and to the music coming from my iPod. Just before I got to work, this came through the speakers and filled my heart with something I've known only rarely since those mornings of old ceased to be. What I heard was:

"Hope...is coming for me."*

In that moment, it was as if God blew on the faint embers smoldering in my heart and then, there was a flame again.

"Hope...is coming for me."

It was like I could see "Hope" running after me, searching for me, determined to find me. Desperate, even. "Hope" is coming for me...not to devour, or destroy, or disappoint, but to fill me and my life to overflowing with the things I truly need. Hope is coming to fan that flame to a blaze, consuming fear and doubt and disillusionment. Hope is coming to give me joy.

So, today, I'm hitting the "un-giving up" button...and waiting, because "Hope...IS coming for me... He's coming for me."

*this is the song, if you would like to hear it. :)