Death hangs like a menacing cloud threatening to wash away all hope. Sorrow pours like unforgiving rain, and all celebration of life is buried in its flood. The soul cries out against tears and pain.
But hope is not lost. Hope is the everlasting, unyielding anchor that holds the ship of Faith afloat. The storm rages and bangs against the ship. Waves pound its side and wash over the deck. But the anchor holds, and the ship floats.
Though the storms of life rage against us. Beating us. Punishing us. Shaming us. The storms cannot sink us. The Master of the seas can sleep soundly at the stern and let the tempest tempt us to surrender to fall beneath the waves and yield to death.
But death is not the final word.
The One who sleeps while our storms threaten us is the One who commands the winds and the waves. Sometimes He calms the storm. Sometimes He calms our fears. But at all times He is in control. He is the One who conquered the waves of death.
He dove headlong into death itself and buried the anchor so deep in the Sea of Forgetfulness that no wrong, no misstep, no malice, no negligence, nothing can be held against us. Nothing can sink us.
But He didn’t stay buried beneath the waves of fear and doubt, beneath the waves of sorrow and death. He rose from the depths victorious.
He has the final word.
Hope.
Hope of life forever with Him.
