I write a lot about hope. I suppose it’s because I’m a huge believer in hope. As a former therapist and now as a life coach helping women deal with loss and grief, I know how shattering life can be and the necessity for holding onto hope.

I think about hope this morning, when I wake and look out my bedroom window. The first thing I see?

Snow.

That’s right. Fresh show that settled like a pure white comforter over the farm during the dark.

But tomorrow is April first. According to folklore, “March comes in like a lion and out like a lamb.” Surely, those folks did’t live in Wisconsin.  Today is the last day of March and I’m helping our youngest move from one apartment to another. Go figure.

Like most everyone else I meet in this state, I get itchy in March. I long for spring, hope for spring, expect spring. I want to see daffodils dancing yellow in the gardens and buds bursting pink on the crabapple trees. I start storing my winter sweaters and fleece-lined farm jeans. Bring out the short sleeves. Exchange down coats and insulated boots for lighter jackets and shoes. Yes, shoes. Today I pray for the robins returned — that they’ll find worms in the frozen.

Our hopes and expectations of spring are nothing compared to our other hopes and expectations.

Sometimes life hurls a huge frozen snowball right into our gut and we lose our breath. Like when the “c” diagnosis hits and changes the trajectory of your life like it did for us recently. Treatment will coincide with our daughter’s surgery to reconstruct all knee ligaments ripped after a horrible accident.

So what do we humans do? How do we cope? How do we settle ourselves, steady ourselves and move forward into the unknown? Ever wonder?

Friend, the first thing we can do is hold onto hope like our lives depend on it. Because they do.

As a therapist and life coach, I help people hold hope when they can’t seem to hold a thing other than shock and grief.

But I’m just a human. I am not hope incarnate.

The good news is this: There is one who embodies hope.

Jesus is hope.

Though our losses might not be recovered this side of heaven, Jesus knows our pain and promises to lead us through into a closer relationship with him who went to hell and back for us, literally.

Jesus laid his life down for us willingly in exchange for ours — a ransom paid so we could be free from sin’s condemnation and the shackles of shame and guilt. So we will one day experience the promise of no more loss, no more pain, no more tears.

We can hold onto him now in the midst of whatever loss and pain we’re experiencing. Or in whatever fear we’re facing.

We can hold onto hope himself.

Our eyes cannot see Jesus just yet. But we can see God’s hand in all his creation. And the seasons are cycles of life. Cycles.

Summer. Fall. Winter. Spring.

God only knows the length of each season and cycle but we can rest assured that Jesus is with us now in spirit, in every season and cycle.

We can lean into his heart and find fresh hope for today and all our tomorrows.

He’s knocking at the door of our hearts right now. Will you open and let him in? Let him comfort and strengthen you right where you are?

You need not be afraid.

Express your full heart, no matter what you’re feeling. It’s ok to be mad, sad, or scared. His whipped-to-the-bone body and nail-pierced hands and feet bore the weight of the world’s sin on that cross. Surely, Jesus can hold you and the full weight of your feelings. Let his tender calm come over you as you lean into your maker and savior.

And remember, because Jesus lives, we all have true hope.

For today. For tomorrow. For forever.

Spring always comes.

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you.  1 Peter 1:3-4