Hope

Some of you might have heard me share this story on the morning show with Jim, Phil and Larry this week - but I thought I'd share it here too, just in case you missed it.

A few weeks ago, I received a really sweet email from a girl out on the East Coast who stumbled upon my blog. She reached out to me because her life story is so similar to mine...and she wanted to let me know how reading my story had encouraged her.

We began to email back and forth occasionally, and I found myself marveling at how God was using my crazy, broken, mixed-up life to bring hope to someone else. {LOVE IT - but still find myself amazed that He can and will do that.}

In one of her emails, she mentioned to me that she saw the photo of my mug that Lynne gave me when I started working here at WBCL.

She asked where I got it, because she really liked it. I told her...but I was pretty sure they weren't making mugs like this anymore, so I wasn't sure she'd be able to get one.

It just so happened, that a while later, when Ryan and I were shopping in TJ Maxx, we found a blue pottery mug with the word HOPE on it. As soon as I saw it, I grabbed one of the two they had hanging from the shelf. I told Ryan I wanted to send it to her, because I wanted to offer her a gift.

I wrapped that mug in more bubble wrap and paper than I should have, probably, and had to squeeze to get the box shut and taped up properly. I addressed it to her, had the post office mark it fragile, and off it went.

A few days later, I got the kindest email from my new friend. She thanked me profusely for the mug and told me there was no way I could have known - but hope was her word for the year. Don't you just love how God works?

And then she said she hesitated to tell me...but on the off-chance that I'd gotten the box insured...the mug arrived in about seven pieces.

WHAT?! How was that even possible?? With all that bubble wrap?

I did have insurance on the box - but the money part is insignificant. I was sad that her mug - her HOPE mug, of all things - arrived shattered.

And yet it all seemed like some object lesson waiting to be sorted out. Shattered hope...

I don't have the object lesson sorted out. But what I've gathered from it so far is that even when everything looks and feels broken, there is still hope. And God is still doing His behind-the-scenes work...orchestrating little details we can't even imagine.

For today - for my confused little brain - that is news that, well, gives me hope.