Floating Lanterns

I’ve been discouraged sometimes lately. Thankfully it hasn’t been everyday, but there have been days when I miss people so much, when I wish I could be there in the difficult times, and I wish I could celebrate with them in the happy times. There have been nights where I feel so tired or burnt out that I don’t see how I’ll have energy to face the morning. Times when I’ve just cried. I know I’m not the only one. But, God has been giving me energy to face new days, he has been giving me strength to keep going. He’s been giving me encouragement from His people. And this morning he gave me a renewed hope.

I was reading this morning in Acts when Paul was on trial telling about his “hope in the fulfillment of God’s promise…” So, as I noticed the word, “hope” two more times in the section I was reading, and as I prayed, God was breathing hope back into my spirit, into my heart. And the fulfilled promise Paul was talking about is Christ. On a whim, I flipped back to the Old Testament to read of a promise that has now been fulfilled in Christ. I read that to those who mourn, God will give a joyous blessing instead of mourning (Isaiah 61). Christ is giving me a joyous blessing! And that’s just one tiny verse, there are innumerable other promises that God has fulfilled in Christ! I hope to keep going back to them so that I can be reminded.

Then, to finish painting this hope onto my heart, God reminded me of an image. If you’ve seen the Disney movie, “Tangled,” you’ll remember that there was a king and a queen whose baby daughter was kidnapped and never found. Every year on the night of her birthday they would light and release lanterns that float up into the air, along with everyone in the village, hoping that somehow the lights could lead her back to them. The movie shows us the king and queen eighteen years later, preparing to release their lanterns once again. His face is the saddest, kindliest face you ever saw, and her eyes mirror his sadness when she reaches up to catch the tear slipping down his face. Then, they go together to send their lanterns into the night sky.

Slowly, brilliantly, thousands of lanterns are lit and released, floating together in the sky, defying the dark, making a golden path in the air. What an image of hope! Out of sadness, out of dark, hope can still grow and shine. This is the gift that God is giving me today, and I’m going to keep asking Him to help me hope, to help me remember how he fulfills His promises, and to remind me of the picture of golden glowing lanterns against the black night sky.