Happy Joy-filled Easter to All!

As my favorite day of the year draws near, pregnant with Joy and Hope for the believer, I wanted to express how much joy I have experienced from reading y'all's posts and comments, especially for the wonderful threads of hope that have been woven into this tapestry. Not the wispy, wishy often unobtainable hope that the philosopher Nietzsche talks about when he wrote, "Hope is the worst of evils, for it prolongs the torments of man;" but rather, the solid, faith-filled hope that Emily Dickinson portrays in her poem, "Hope," in which she says

Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune--without the words,
And never stops at all,

And sweetest in the gale is heard;
And sore must be the storm
That could abash the little bird
That kept so many warm.

I've heard it in the chillest land,
And on the strangest sea;
Yet, never, in extremity,
It asked a crumb of me.

Or the type of hope the unknown writer of Hebrews portrays in the statement, "Nowfaith is the substance of things hoped for, and the evidence of things not seen." A metaphor for this statement might be to picture a builder examining a set of blueprints for beautiful home and standing at the site where a truckload of building materials has just been delivered; here, hope is represented by the blueprints, and faith is represented by the commitment in having the site ready and the building materials delivered.

Recently, in my studies, I was given this neat word picture: Hope is a tine in the trident we use to slay the dragons of fear; the other two tines are Faith and Love. As we wield our trusty trident to drive out and destroy the enemies of our soul, our spirit basks in the warmth of the climate of Joy, which always prevails.

Thanks for starting this warm little fire, KaraMc, and to all of you who have faithfully stoked it...It definitely brings "delight" to my day!

And thank you, Lord, for the joy of Easter, and the hope that it represents.

Happy joy-filled Easter, everyone...Hope you have a wonderful, fun filled day!