People I love have been picking a Word for the Year. I’m impressed by some of their choices, and, frankly, rather intimidated by the thought of choosing a word myself. It seems like sort of a mixture of New Year’s Resolution and prophetic insight. Both carry responsibility, and that is the part that scares me. If I pick Joy for instance, will I be forced to live up to that even on a grumpy day? Or, what if I choose Gumption, and then mine fails miserably when the new Medicare billing platform completely befuddles me and leaves our cash flow strapped for months. (Yep, already happening.)

Instead, I’m choosing to grasp again a word I’ve carried for eight years. That year probably qualifies as the toughest in our lives. The death of a  tiny granddaughter and the struggle of her twin sister to live. The debilitating illness of my strong husband. The devastating loss of a twenty-year friendship and the shaking of many others. The death of three people we loved, two of them in their twenties.

For Christmas that year, Wendell managed to go up to the gift shop in our little town and pick out this heirloom picture frame. I thanked him with a kiss, and then he told me the real gift was inside the drawer. He pulled it open, revealing this slip of yellow note paper and said, “What I really want to give you this year is Hope.”

We tucked a picture of one-year-old Claire into the frame. The expression on her face seemed to say, “I may have come into the world at less than a pound and a half, but I plan to take this place by storm.” And, she has.

Hope has never let me down. Not because things have always gone smoothly or all endings have been happy. But because what Wendell really gave me that year was the reminder of where my Hope comes from. Beyond this veil. Beyond this world of trouble. Beyond even the greatest joys of these temporary days.

Hope is from Heaven. And it never fails. What a great word.