By Ashlie Miller

Do you have times when a theme or word pops up prevalently in your life? Hope has been that word for me recently. I first noticed it while helping my daughter work through an AWANA book (AWANA is a Bible study and memory program that has been around for a while.) “What is the difference between hope as we see it and hope as the Bible explains it?” Do you know the difference?

The same question came up about a week later while I was at a celebration of life service for a dear lady who had recently passed away. The minister there asked the same question about hope, and he too had the same answer my daughter read a week earlier — earthly hope is the sort of wishful thinking we all have. You may have seen or experienced it last week — “I hope my loved one is OK.” “I hope they can get cell service so I can hear from them soon.” “I hope someone can get fuel, water and food to my loved one.” “I hope they will be able to rebuild their lives.”

My family and I have lived in a wishful kind of hope not fully realized as we waited for contact with my brother in Clyde, N.C. We hoped he was well. We wished he could get power and water, reach the inaccessible main road and reunite with his family, who had been visiting with family here in Rowan County before the hurricane hit.

As humans, many of us are doing all we can to make those wishes and hopes come true. My brother-in-law’s moving company has been stationed at Walmart all week to shuttle collected hurricane relief supplies to the Concord Regional Airport for Operation Airdrop. I asked fellow volunteers I met if they had connections to western North Carolina, and almost everyone did. I usually could tell the answer before their mouth replied as their eyes welled up with tears. “I came because I needed to feel I was helping them in some way” has been the common response. Some who have donated also do so for similar reasons. One lady I thanked for her donation shared that she had a loved one who had perished in the floods and family members who had to climb to the roof and even survive by holding onto a tree. Unable to be there to console and help in person, giving supplies is the closest thing many can do to provide a sense of hope and care.

All this does so much to offer hope and to fulfill many wishes for relief. However, there is a much greater hope, which is a sure thing. As my daughter’s study book says, “The Bible tells us that to hope for something means that we will get it because God told us we would.” These “somethings” are beyond temporal material things that, as we have witnessed, can be washed away in a flash. We can have access by faith into grace (Romans 5:1-2) — a gift we all need to receive what we have not earned nor deserve. We can hope and receive righteousness — the only guarantee to an eternal life with God rather than an eternal separation (Galatians 5:5, Titus 1:2).

I hope my brother’s family gets power and water soon. I hope my sister-in-law, niece and nephew are able to get to him (if they haven’t by the time of this printing). I hope the community they are in can recover soon. I have no control and neither do they. But one thing we are sure of, our eternal hope in Jesus is secure.

Ashlie Miller and her husband Chad raise their family in Concord. You may contact her at mrs.ashliemiller@me.com.