“The hope of the righteous is joy…” (Prov 10:28).

Stumbling upon that verse, this year, during my year of Joy, was a gift.  I’m learning that Hope is the sister who comes first, Hope passes the baton to Joy.

And our Hope is a special one.  Because we’re not hoping in a score, or a victory, or the weather.   We’re hoping in a Person.  And that Person is always faithful, good and true.  Or as Annie Downs puts it, “God was (and is) (and will continue to be) kind to me.” 

As I got lost in Annie’s story (and this book is definitely chock-full of stories) I realized that she walked the same road I’m walking.  It’s this one: learning to say, not that I can hope in God  even in my hard times, but that I must hope in Him especially in the hard times.  This kind of hope doesn’t come easy, because the hardest thing about our hard times? He tends to feel the farthest.  Like He’s left us back here on the road; or maybe He’s just around the bend; when we don’t know where He is, can we trust Him to help us, to hear us still? But I can agree with Annie: “I want to remember God even when my circumstances don’t always match what I cognitively know about Him.”

When Annie’s story begins, it’s as if she is taking her Father’s hand, like a trusting little girl, and the two of them strolling together through a meadow of flowers.  Annie’s flowers are the words of life that have been spoken over her, words of promise, words that point to a bright future.  Words of hope.

But the sky begins to darken, the clouds begin to whirl.  Her hopes are disappointed.  The flowers wilt.  The path slopes downhill along with her hopes; Annie wonders, and you wonder with her: where is God now?

She’s not afraid to let you in to her brief but heavy season of depression, her season in the trench at the bottom of the hill.  She’s not embarrassed to describe to you the picture of the girl, alone and lonely in a hotel room.  She’s not ashamed because now she knows, now that it’s over, that her Father was there with her all along.

And the fog lifts.  Annie begins her ascent back up the hill with her Father, hand still in hand, somewhat shakier, but ever grateful for the rescue.

As the book ends, you stand with a tried-and-true Annie, on firm ground, touching, seeing, smelling the beauty of every little thing around you.  You watch with her from the banks of Scotland as she looks back over the memories of her life and sees the “cathedral moments,” the ones where God has been undeniably there, those couldn’t-miss-him moments.

As I read Annie’s war-cry, I’m inspired, too, to cling to the God who is Love.  I’m inspired again to hold tight to His hand, whether the path shall lead through the sunniest meadows, or to the darkest depths.  I’m praying for a Shadrach-Meshach-Abednego kind of faith: the one that says, “Even if.” 

Friends: if you want to learn how to cling to your Abba’s hand through every twist and turn, if you want to learn to look back and find your own cathedral moments, if you want to journey with a woman who knows how to be vulnerable and hopeful at the same time, then I’d wholeheartedly recommend Annie’s book, Remember God.

Clinging to Jesus,

Laura

*As a member of the B&H blogger team, I received a free copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.