Jesus Is Our Hope and He’s Everywhere

I grew up in a small town in Iowa. My mother believed that Jesus is our hope in life,  and taught us his words at every opportunity.

The town may have been small, but it was full of faith. We didn’t have a lot of citizens, but the four churches in town were filled to capacity every Sunday morning. They were also filled nearly every other day of the week.

Without a doubt, I will forever be grateful for all those people who shared their faith, respect, giving spirits, and love with a small girl. Back in those days, no one knew the hurt I carried in my heart every day.

Perhaps the abuse I suffered made me more aware of the suffering of others throughout my life.

My awareness most certainly was based on Mother’s teachings of the Bible and her belief that Jesus is our hope for a good future.

I See Jesus Everywhere – And He is Hope!

For several years now, my heart has grieved for everything my eyes have seen.

I believe that Jesus is our Hope, but He’s being left out.

When did we turn our backs on our spirituality?

At what point did our spiritual leaders begin to shun His word?

I see Jesus in the faces of 160,000 Americans who have died this year because we didn’t meet the challenges as a united people.

It is Jesus’s eyes I see in the faces of small children ripped from their mother’s arms and thrown into cages.

Whether you can accept it or not, it was Jesus’s eye that was shot out with a rubber bullet. It happened during a peaceful protest that was not violent until pepper spray and rubber bullets were aimed at my fellow citizens. The violence began so men of privilege could pose in front of a church that wasn’t even theirs.

Jesus’s face looks back at me from the family desperately trying to flee persecution. His heart bleeds again that they will be sent back to the danger they thought they escaped.

On the streets of the city where I raised my children, it was Jesus’ voice I heard, begging for breath under the knee of one charged to protect us.

Jesus Weeps

Once I became an author, I knew I shouldn’t say anything political and I’ve tried so hard to live up to that ideal.

My feelings over the past few years have nothing to do with politics.

The deep-seated anguish that lives in my heart today was created by all the anger and hatred I have witnessed in this country I love.

My God is a loving God

His son, Jesus, died on a cross to forgive my sins and give me everlasting life.

It is Jesus I see all around me.

His eyes are filled with the pain I feel in my heart.

Today, I have no idea why people have become so nasty to each other. It’s not how I was raised. And, it’s certainly not how I have lived.

This past winter, I took in a young woman who was sleeping in her car. She didn’t ask me to do this. I saw a need and helped fill it. Her disability prevented her from working and the place she’d been renting was filled with mold.

Does that act of Christian love equate me to a political party in your eyes? If so, you may be part of the problem.

My hope, and yours, should be that we live up to the expectations in Jesus’s eyes.

Do you see him in your surroundings as I do?

Jesus Is Our Hope.