The Blessing of Hope

        I recently went to the funeral of my aunt Willie Ruth Jenkins down in Greenville, South Carolina.  Her husband Ellison passed away a few years ago.  At the funeral they played a recording of Willie and Ellison performing the song "Beulah Land."  Ellison had a rich baritone voice, and had been a member of the Palmetto State Quartet.  Willie Ruth accompanied him on the piano, and in their later years the two of them performed in many nursing homes around the Carolinas.  They considered it their ministry, and their music blessed many people.  As the music played, I thought about the blessing of hope which our Christian faith brings.  "Beulah Land" is a song of hope and reminds us of the rewards of living a life in Christ.

        In visiting with my cousins I found a sense of celebration for my aunt.  We all remembered her as a woman who was always kind, almost never raised her voice, and who always had a twinkle in her eye.  Although her last years saw her memory fade away from Alzheimer’s, she never lost that sweetness of spirit.

        It must have been hard for Willie Ruth and Ellison to travel to the nursing homes, to practice and prepare, to drive sometimes through bad weather, and to go in spite of developing physical problems of their own.  But they went.  I can imagine that sometimes they were warmly welcomed and appreciated, and sometimes, they probably wondered whether anything had been accomplished.  But they went anyway.  Their gospel music had brought them many blessings over the years, and they knew it blessed others.  They chose to use their music to bring God’s love to some of the most neglected and abandoned in our own society.  As they sang those songs of heaven, they gave encouragement and hope to the ones who listened.  I know it certainly produced that effect in me.

        We have reason to hope.  No matter how hard things get on this earth, the Christian faith brings the promise of something more.  Can we imagine what life without hope would be like?  In Russia we saw hope on the faces of the Russian Christians, and we saw a truly bleak hopelessness in the eyes of the unbelievers.  Life without God is truly bleak; a life without color, with only disease, decline, and decay to look forward to.  With Christ, every day is a new opportunity for ministry; each day presents new opportunities to discover more about God, and to learn new and more subtle layers of spiritual experience.

        The fear of death is gone, and the anticipation of being united with God becomes more real.