Hope Floats

I recently visited the house that I grew up in and was surprised to find it in good shape and part of a nice neighborhood. Why was I surprised? There was well-manicured green grass in the front yard, supplanting the barren brownness we left behind. The fences were upright in the back yard, no longer nearly doubled over from the many times we jumped it in pursuit of an errant baseball. The many dents  were now removed from the aluminum siding of the house. I was easing into the idea that it had been us, my family, that gave the neighborhood it’s grisly exterior back then.

My brothers and I were also the ones seated in the front pews at church, the ones whose mom had to constantly “shush” them. We drew stick figures and played tic tac toe to push away the boredom of the service. Did we stain our local church services the way we had stained our block?

We were raised by a single working mom, all of us heartbroken by the abandonment of the man of the house. We spoke of nothing, rarely engaged one another in any fashion and lived lives of quiet avoidance. We tip toed around the thousand-pound gorilla of abandonment — we would have at least complained about the smell and the lack of space but we didn’t speak at all.

This was the story of a house full of children gone wrong. The casual observer could see this in the stains we trailed behind us, crying out on our behalf that something was amiss.

And then it was Christmas Eve, excitement abounded and sleep was unattainable. We shouted from our back bedroom, desperately pleading for our mom to update us on the status of Santa’s sleigh, now appearing on the radar of our local television channel. Tomorrow would be Christmas and that meant new, unstained clothes and toys and baseballs, so different than us. They represented hope of who we might one day be, hope of renewal, a chance for a clean start, a reboot.

People were different at Christmas, too, more vigorous, more optimistic and friendlier. These unstained attitudes also represented hope, hope of escape, hope of a better way than the ways we knew.

As you shopped, when you distributed presents, when you gathered up the Christmas paper, tags and ribbons, was someone watching you? Did they see hope in you and your actions? Did their wounded hearts quicken to the images and actions you displayed?

If you were impatient when searching for a parking spot and standing in line, did you see a group of young children watching you, no parent in sight? Did they see hope in you?

Jesus gave His life to redeem us, to give us hope. Will you give a leg up and a smile to someone who needs it? Would you be aware that the neighbor you are to love might live in the downtrodden house right next to you or be in a long line right next to you?

Shake a hand, wish someone “Merry Christmas!”, smile … give a child hope.

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