Prisoners of Hope

Red beads clicked around her face as she skipped into the kitchen to find her head a resting place, now nearly at my shoulder.  She whispered of the wounds once covered, but never healed. An unfamiliar panic crawled up in the back of my throat, settling in as it hit me, the full weight of how much we had yet to overcome.

I took her face in my hands and through blurred eyes assured her, assured myself, what Jesus thought of her, her red beads and her red sash as His red blood spilled out.  Because I knew that, I knew this—He would not leave us here.

He didn’t and I saw progress, but the fears stayed. Nights of standing by her bed, days of checking, double-checking, and checking again. Blame and accusations from the enemy that I could have done something differently, done something better. Anger and hatred toward the sin that could allow someone to do such horrible things to an innocent, helpless child. I knew beauty. I fought to see Him here.

Months later on a Tuesday in the still-dark house, I drank too-strong a coffee and I drank of His grace. I prayed over my daughter, a splash of red in the tapestry of our family—feisty, powerful, and full of care and compassion. I wrestled with the questions of “what if”, “if only”, and I told them of His sovereignty, again.

Right there on the worn pages, I read Zechariah call God’s people prisoners of hope. I knew that I hadn’t been. Once more I had become more of a prisoner of overwhelming concern about the trauma of my children’s pasts and shifted my gaze away from what, Who, I was really captive to. “But in Him, it has always been ‘yes!’ For no matter how many promises God has made, they are all ‘yes’ in Christ” (2 Cor. 1:19-20).

My flesh wants to shake my head “no,” but I am a prisoner to God who says “yes!” All of His promises–peace, joy, love, forgiveness, salvation–they are yes to me and yes to her in Christ! Eternity is yes in Christ, and because of His yes I can say yes to all that He gives. Even all that He allows.

Hope is my captor—hope for her healing here, which has already begun—and hope for our life eternal with Him. Hope that He who began a good work in us is not finished yet and will carry it to completion until the day that He comes, and hope that He is coming.

I see with new eyes, a captive of the hope set fully on the grace given me through Christ. I must live my days as this kind of prisoner, because true freedom is only found in being completely captivated by a coming King.

She, who is always the first one awake, pulls a book off the shelf and snuggles up next to me in silence, her nine-year-old lankiness curling up like an infant inside waiting arms. I see hope in her—I see myself. I kick, I scream, and I thrash hard against the Father’s love. I shift my focus and become a prisoner to the panic instead of the promise, and still He says, “mine.” He looks at me, broken, and calls me daughter, ever so lovingly pulling me right back in.

I study her face and can’t imagine that I know only a fraction of His love for her as I whisper the prayers every morning over her heart, “Jesus, you bind up the brokenhearted…set the captives free…comfort those who mourn…bestow beauty instead of ashes… “They will be called oaks of righteousness, a display of the Lord’s splendor.” I trace the curve of her face with my fingers and praise Him for such resilience and transformation as I have seen in this child. I praise Him for her salvation and the way she is hungrily learning more about Him each day.

I write it small, on her hand and mine, “prisoner of hope.”

I want to live as a prisoner to the “yes.” Remembering all we have seen, we set our hope fully on what we have not yet seen. We place all of our hope, all of our trust, and all of our focus on the grace given to us through Christ. We beg to live captured by His promises.