Many of you might remember that book, 88 Reasons Why the Rapture Could Be in 1988. When it came out, I was 12-years-old growing up in a charismatic house. From September 11 – 13, 1988, I sat on the couch by the yellowed plastic blinds looking out at the sky and praying a prayer of repentance every hour– plus several times in between just to be sure. I wanted Jesus to come back and sort of didn’t. I was a little nervous that He’d come in the clouds right after I sinned but before I repented. But He didn’t return and my hope for His coming then fizzled with the movie rights to the book.

If I rewind a little more, I can remember another time my hopes were dashed. When I was about four- or five-years-old, I saw commercials on the TV at day care for Fresh N’ Fancy. All I wanted for Christmas was Fresh N’ Fancy. When Christmas morning arrived, I remember peering down from the townhouse balcony and seeing the box unwrapped underneath the tree. I rushed down, opened the cellophane, and after about five minutes, felt really ripped off. I didn’t get anything else, and Fresh N’ Fancy was overpriced colorless, odorless plastic pieces of faux make-up. It wasn’t even real.

Then there was another Christmas. It was 1995. I’d met Greg earlier that March and wondered what was taking so long for a proposal and his first, “I love you.” Things were serious, and I was ready to tell him to step up or step off, if you know what I mean. So I assume he’s waiting for Christmas so he can get by with just one gift—my engagement ring. He presents me with a huge box, but when I keep opening it, the package gets smaller and smaller and smaller. Yes! Finally, I open the last box. It is a very small jewelry box, the size of a ring. I open it.

There are gold earrings in the box. Gold earrings, ladies.

I pretended to like them, but I hated them. I hated them so much. I tried to smile, and he sat there clueless about what my weird behavior was all about. I cried in my pillow all night for my stupidity, for my expectations, for my wonderment about being duped about the whole thing. I was “serious” all right…seriously stupid.

I feel like Charlie Brown a lot. He runs up to kick the football, but in the end, Lucy pulls it away every….single….time.

The reason I’m thinking about hope today is because I have a lot to hope for. My baby is due tomorrow, and five children thus far, I’ve never gone past my due date. (Yes, I know “normal” goes to 42 weeks.) But I’m wallowing in pity anyway. Remember when I was vomiting my guts out all day, every day for weeks in the first trimester? I circled the day of my second trimester and told myself, “Just hang on until that day. It will all be OK by then.” When I woke up that magical morning, I waited to feel the relief, but it never came. I just threw up and threw up some more.

So I circled the due date (tomorrow, November 8th) on my calendar and told myself, “Just hang on until that day. It will all be OK by then.” I will not need to hang onto the walls and countertops to walk. I will not be in pain. I will not be nauseous.

We’ll see about that. I just can’t get Charlie Brown out of my mind.

The Bible says that hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life. (Proverbs 13:12) The thing about hope is that it means something entirely different when we put our hope in God. It is not a maybe, might be, Christmas-disaster sort of thing. It is sure, secure, and just as certain as if it already happened. When we hope for things to possess, people to come through, or situations to work out, these things are subject to whim, circumstance, and sometimes the elusive hormone kicking in. But when we hope in God—that He will do the things He said He’d do, be the things He said He’d be, wash us in the blood He bought— we can be certain that the football waiting on the field will never be snatched away.