Hope Floats

I loved that movie when I saw it even though the title didn’t really make sense. At the end of the movie it is explained what is meant by that. Hope floats. You can keep pushing it down but it will bubble back up to the surface.


My mom wrote a Sunday School lesson about Hope…Here is a part of that lesson. It was written in January 1999 and was the lesson she taught the Sunday after I had a hysterectomy.

“ Always Hope 2 Samuel 12:13-21

God answers prayers. Every prayer we pray is answered in some way. We may not like the way it is answered but God does answer. Everyone knows that the last week I was very upset because my daughter LeeAnn was about to have surgery and it was a possibility that it was cancer. So we came to Church and asked everyone to pray for her. Her church was praying, our church was praying and all the people who ate dinner with us each night on the cruise we were on when she called scared to tell us of the surgery asked their churches to pray.I guess my grandsons explained the way God works in their own way. My daughter overheard them talking. Christopher said “we need to pray for mom Andy and ask God that it not be cancer.” Andy replied “ I don’t know if that will work because I prayed for Chad every night and he still died and he had cancer.” Christopher replied “ well God answers some of the time and so we still should pray just in case.” Did you know that we can live for 10 days without food and 7 days without water. 3 minutes without air but only 1 second without hope.

David had gotten himself into a lot of trouble because he had sinned with Bathsheba. He didn’t care who he hurt, only about his desires and his wants. Back in those days, eastern society approved of a man having many wives. It was not a big deal. But you see, David was under God’s law. David had a night of pleasure, a night with a beautiful woman, but the result of that night left Bathsheba pregnant. Instead of confessing his sin before God, David decided to cover it up. Instead of asking for forgiveness and mercy, he took matters into his own hands. He had her husband killed in battle. David had now destroyed a courageous and honorable man
As the story unfolds, David and Bathsheba have a son. And David loves his son very much. And that son becomes ill. David falls on his face and begins to pray that God would spare his son. He begins to ask God for forgiveness, for mercy. For David knew that as long as his son was alive, there was hope that God would intervene. He had no way of knowing the outcome, but he knew that there is always hope that God would intervene. So he stays on his face asking God to spare his son for as long as his son is alive. He wouldn’t give up. He didn’t give up until his son died. After the child died, David got up and cleaned himself up and returned to the palace. The servants couldn’t understand this. Why did he get up and go on with his life? David’s answer to them was “I fasted and wept while my child was alive because I knew how gracious my Lord is. He might have let my child live, there was hope. Now that is over and I can only go to be with him someday. He will never return to me.”

On this earth there are many heartaches and we all have our share. We have prayed for loved ones to live but they die and go on to be with the Lord. But as long as they live, we pray and HOPE for God to intervene. I have a wonderful memory of my mother. I just would not believe that she was going to die. I prayed to God night after night. Many times she would be so weak, we would have to carry her to the living room and she would sit admist the family activity of 5 kids. She would not give up. Each night as I put her to bed, she would grab my hand and say “I’ll be here tomorrow”. When I think of my mother I always remember the hope that she had for tomorrow. She never gave up. As long as she was alive, there was hope that God would intervene.”



I remember the fear and the anxiety that I suffered when they thought I might have ovarian cancer. And I also remember the calmness I felt each time someone told me they were praying for me. I wrote a story about that experience and I will find it and put it in the blog at some point. Its called The Cross and it’s a story about hope. Even though they were children at the time when Andy doubted the power of prayer, as an adult I have those same doubts at times. After my mother died, it was a long time before I could hear someone ask for prayer in Church and not think to myself that God was going to let them down too. I was very angry at God for taking such a beautiful person and witness for Him away from me and our family.

When my mother was diagnosed with cancer, I was devastated. I began to ask everyone I met to pray for her to beat the disease. I was not ready to try and live my life without her in it. She was my best friend and she was the only person who knew exactly what to say when I needed advice or comfort. From the day of her diagnosis until the day she died I think there was about 2 years…For Pancreatic cancer that is a lot of time. And so now that I look back, God didn’t answer my prayer to spare my mother’s life. But I believe he delayed her death so that we would have more time together. Her gospel barn was such an inspiration to so many people and I believe that countless lives were saved thru that ministry. When I get to heaven someday, I will ask God about all of this. I could have written one of her paragraphs myself because it exactly mirrors what she wrote of Her mother.

"I have a wonderful memory of my mother. I just would not believe that she was going to die. I prayed to God night after night. She would not give up. Each night as I put her to bed, she would grab my hand and say “I’ll be here tomorrow”. When I think of my mother I always remember the hope that she had for tomorrow. She never gave up. As long as she was alive, there was hope that God would intervene.

She never gave up.. Until her dying breath she had hope that God would intervene and spare her life. She loved her family so much and the thought of leaving them was unbearable to her. And so she fought a long and hard battle. She never gave up and I believe that it was that hope that kept her alive for as long as it did. Even up to a few weeks before she died, she was in her Gospel Barn, praising God and touching lives. The world lost a great witness for God when she died. I lost a mother and a friend that can never be replaced. Yet she lives on in my heart and she lives on thru these writings that are more precious to me than gold. Because as I type her notes, it is as if she is here in the room with me, telling me the lesson aloud. I hear her voice clearly as I read the story. I can picture her gestures, her face as it would have been as she taught her class. Serving God was always her focus and she lived a blessed life. She blessed many lives. Even as a teenager I never went thru that stage where I hated my mother. I can’t remember ever even getting mad at her. When people would say You are just like your mother I would swell with pride. Because everyone loved my mother. She was a light in a world where darkness and ugliness are all around us.

I still don’t understand why he took my mom. I still don’t understand why my marriage ended. But I accept that God is in charge and knows what to do. I read that every prayer is answered in one of 3 ways. The answer is yes, or the answer is no, or the answer is we’ll see. But like my mother I believe that every prayer is heard, and every prayer is answered. As for the surgery, God answered that prayer and I didn’t have cancer. Looking back it was also a no to a prayer I had been praying prior to getting sick. I wanted another child but Mike did not. The surgery was successful; but I lost my ability to have children. So God answered the prayer that it wasn’t cancer with a yes and at the same time God anwered my prayer for more children with a No. And I can’t help thinking as I look back that God knew that Mike would make a decision 2 years later that would have been even more devastating had we had a small child.

For where God is there is always Hope. Hope floats.