The Power of Hope

“For I know the plans I have for you,” says the LORD. “They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope.”

Jeremiah 29:11


It was pastor Skip Heitzig who said, “Faith rests on the past; love works in the present; hope looks to the future” and today those words could not be more true. August 20, 2022 marks the eighteenth anniversary since Danielle Marie Gould who at just the age of seventeen stepped into eternity. Its almost impossible to wrap my mind around the thought that she has been gone longer than she was here with us. For me and the entire Gould family and those who knew and loved Danielle the memories of her that saturate our hearts spill over from our eyes today as we still mourn her loss all the while cherishing and celebrating her life and the hope we have that one day soon we will see her again.

Until the day we see Danielle again we hold on to the promise of God that those who put their trust in Him will not be disappointed. Danielle loved Jesus with all of her heart and it was evident both to those who knew her or people she just met. Danielle was passionate and it showed in how she sought to live. She loved deeply and she enjoyed life and living it to the fullest. She cared about people and sought to make a difference in the lives of both those she loved and even strangers she just met. To be honest, Danielle never met a stranger. She would talk to a store mannequin if she thought it would talk back. She was smart, yet grounded in every sense of the word. Speaking of grounded, she wasn’t perfect as she had just got off from being “grounded” for violating her curfew just days before she left for Heaven. She was fearless and yet her greatest quality was her walk with Jesus though she hardly walked anywhere, she usually danced. Her walk was real as was her devotion to Him. Though only seventeen and every bit as silly and fun loving as you would expect a teenager to be, she was committed, she was dedicated, and she was faithful. Qualities that made her attractive to everyone. Forget her, not in a million years!  

Today I am reminded that when you lose someone you love, life can feel like an extreme paradox. For a moment, when Danielle died it felt like all hope was lost but now, all these years later her death is actually the catalyst the Lord used to deepen our hope. With each August 20 the paradox is made much more real. When someone who has suffered the loss of someone they loved reads statements like, “here but there”, “satisfied but longing”, “happy and sad”, “present but distracted”, and “full but empty” they don’t need further explanation as they represent a way of life. When I read words like those above, often times they were penned by someone who has suffered loss and finds him or her self like a ship at sea stuck between two ports. The battle eighteen years later is learning how to endure the pain of no more that seeks to out weigh the gratitude of what once was. That is why hope is so important.

If there is a lesson the Gould’s have learned over the course of these eighteen years since their vibrant and beautiful baby girl took the hand of her “Mr. Right” it might be found in the words Andy Dufresne wrote to his good friend Red, “Hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things and no good thing ever dies.” But don’t get me wrong as equally true is hope is not held onto without a fight. The struggle all these years later remains to let hope fill every crack and crevice that the pain of her loss carves into the heart no matter how many years pass. The goal each day now is to allow faith, hope and love act as the glue that holds the broken pieces together until that day Jesus makes all things new and until then to live life with the knowledge that hope is strong. Actually hope is amazing because it makes living with your heart wide open possible, capable of accepting both beauty and pain since you can’t have one without the other. Did I mention that life can be paradoxical?

What once was just a quote on paper is now a present reality, “the depth of our sorrow is equal to the depth of our love.” Like Jacob we have simply learned to walk with a limp. Today we are reminded that hope is what makes happy tears possible and is why the heart still dreams and is convinced happy endings are a reality and not just in fairy tales. Hope reminds us of a place that is spectacular just beyond the clouds. Hope is our reminder that in heaven we will be together again. Because of hope we have the certainty that we will see her again! The beauty amidst the pain today is knowing we are one day closer than when we first believed. Its no wonder that hope may be the best of things!


“But I will hope continually, And will praise You yet more and more.”


Psalm 71:14


I LOVE YOU!