Beech Tree News Network

SEASON OF HOPE - In a column written not too long ago, I mentioned that as part of an exercise in examining our faith at the place my family worships at, we all were invited to write our own personal psalm. We had learned that many of the psalms had been written as really a crying out to God sort of asking why things are the way they are. I said I might reprint here sometime and I think this is the right time. It basically wonders if God is really capable of understanding what we humans go through when hope is running low. The second one I am going to share come about from being asked to come up with something in particular about hope as we examine Hope, Joy, Peace and Love, in this holiday season, leading up to the birth of the Christ child.

After thinking for a while on which direction I wanted to take it. I finally decided to follow in ancient Jewish tradition and I personified Hope. Wisdom is personified all through the wisdom books, in particular Proverbs, where wisdom is classified as a lady (Sophia) in the original language. It is tradition that Hope, Faith and Love are the daughter's of lady Wisdom ( so now you know who the many daughters are in proverbs 31 and who the poem is really talking about.) I stayed with that viewpoint as I wrote about Hope. Here are those two poems, to send us into the Christmas season, reflecting on Hope and the important part she plays in our lives.

                     THE  ORPHAN'S  PATH

Lord;

Do you understand being ridiculed?

Have you, ever known loneliness

Lord;

Has all your strength ever been suddenly robbed?

Have you ever walked a path that left you all alone?

Without a voice? Powerless?

Are these things an omniscient; All-powerful being can enter into?

Never good enough;

never accepted;

Unending struggle;

Hope-a distant dream;

I know these well-trodden paths intimately,

can you even empathize?

Lord;

if you understand, lend me a small portion of your strength!

let your presence be known, so that I may know, I'm not alone!

Share your wisdom and your love.

A child of God is all I ever really yearned to be;

yet doubt smirks at that longing; Please: ABBA father,

let the path of the orphan, no longer be mine!

HOPE

Hope- just as beautiful, just as fair to gaze upon, as Wisdom's other daughters.

Love, and Faith have their share of suitors many a poem, many a passionate song have been penned in their honor.

But you – Hope, with your heart as pure as a newborn, are the strongest; possessing a

strength so fierce, so inspiring; you are the only one capable of rescuing us,

when we fall into the pit of despair. When all our strength is gone,

where do we find the will to go on? When a sneering voice claws at our minds,

telling us to “give up; NOTHING-

will ever change.”

Bitterness, Apathy; powerful foes; so formidable; Fear- their smirking father, confidant

his sons will trap us in an inescapable prison but

Hope reaches out, smiles and grasps our hand.

in the darkness, Hope's sweet, sweet voice cries out “Hold on!”

"Give in, give up, quit struggling;” our captors, our tormentors-

Fear and his minions, tell us again and again,

"no light can penetrate these prison walls " they assure us.

Hope, lovely, fair, wonderful, precious, Hope; breaks down those walls. ”

We gain our freedom by choosing hope as our liberator or our bride.

she embraces us, comforts us, heals us.

Hope never abandons us, it is only when we we abandon her

that we find ourselves at the gates of Hell.

But even there, we are not beyond Hopes reach.

She patiently waits for our call, then she swoops us up,

whispering, “never forget me again, for that was your vow the day we were betrothed”