Hope is like a stream of water in a dry desert. It refreshes the soul.

I have been thinking about this post for most of my day. The news has covered extensively the miraculous return of three girls, now women who have been missing for ten years. I have seen the coverage and, like every human with a conscience and a heart, I am sickened and distraught by the ugliness that saturates our world. However, my post is not about these three young women directly. Nor is it about the monster who took them or his siblings who did nothing to help. This post is about the loss of hope. Louwana Miller, spent two years handing out pictures and putting up posters of her daughter, Amanda Berry. She did not give up hope. Something in her heart told her Amanda was alive. However, in 2004 while on the Montel Williams show, a well known psychic told her that her daughter was dead. The psychic didn’t stop there. She goes on to give details about missing clothes and DNA. Miller was broken hearted and in her own words, “devastated”.  Her heart told her to keep hoping, but someone (who has no right to) came in and stomped all over that hope. A year later Louwana Miller died. My takeaway is twofold: Firstly, nothing beats the hope and endurance of a mother. I genuinely believe it is the spunk and spirit instilled by her mother that gave Berry the strength to yell for help, to run out that door and to save herself, her daughter, and the others held in captivity. Secondly, don’t let others rob you of your hope. The Bible says, “Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life” (Proverbs 13:12). Louwana Miller was robbed of her hope and as a result she did not live to see her daughter’s heroic act. On this journey, people will want to rob you of your hope. The psychic may have really believed that what she said was true (I am not here to judge), however she is NOT God and from my perspective she had no right to make that call. I wonder if the psychic had said, “I can’t answer that question. But hold on to your hope”, would things have been different for Ms. Miller? Would she still be alive holding on to her hope, fighting to bring her daughter home? Honestly, I don’t know. But I hold out hope that it would have been so.

What am I thankful for today? For Louwana Miller and the fighting, never-give-up spirit of a MOTHER (and that those that were lost are now found).