Colossians 1:16-17 "For by Him all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible whether thrones or dominions or rules or authorities--all things have been created by Him and for Him. And He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together."

Hope is a gift. When everything seems to be unraveling around us, hope is an invitation given to us by God to have faith in the unreasonable. Hope defies intellectual conviction and proves that to be human is to sometimes live beyond mere rationality. And hope arises in the most unlikely places. Two years ago I visited Auschwitz with a handful of high school students. During our three hour tour of that horrible place, I found myself walking along the train track that had, at one time, carried families from all across Europe to their unfathomable executions. Wildflowers and swaying grass now grow where steel wheels once gripped sleek tracks and carried over a million people into Auschwitz. Wildflowers and grass, famished bodies and severed families. The stark contrast of these images seem only likely to coexist on separate ends of our earth. And yet, only about sixty years separate the two realities. Auschwitz, once a hellish place for hungry death to satisfy its appetite is now a sobering memorial to life and a silent challenge to those who would treat it as anything less than a matchless gift.

We are forgetful people, and we, like sheep are skittish and lack the ability to breathe slowly and hopefully amid the contradictions to grace that seem poised to tear our lives apart. We forget that, despite what circumstances reveal to our naked eyes, our lives are held together by the One who holds all things together. Of course, this reality cannot keep us from entering dark seasons of the soul, but it can, when all hope seems fleeting, beckon us into the grip of Him who endured every darkness, every temptation to believe that nothing good remains, and find our lives held near to the Creator's heart.

Hope. That a death camp can become a place where daffodils dwell. Hope. That the night will soon give way to the dancing colors of dawn's pallet. Hope. That the illusion of utter chaos would reveal the security of our place near the Creator's heart. Hope.

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