I’m stuck in a badly written dystopian novel.

What else do you call conversations about vaccines, their potency, forced quarantines and how the health department wants me to get a vaccine simply so they have a paper trail?

I was ranting to my hubby. “If I wasn’t writing another novel already (and if I liked them) I should write a dystopian novel and it would be called Hope Nazi. I mean, seriously. I’ve got the plot and everything right here! No hope for you! No hope for you!! Or you!!”

I was rewarded with his hearty laugh. (I love his laugh.)

That’s how quarantine #2 started, but by God’s grace, it’s not how each day has been.

Whether it’s just a good cup of coffee frothed just right while enjoying a patch of sun or a brisk walk with the dog while the birds get their noise on or getting to snuggle with my baby, I don’t have to be a Hope Nazi.

It’s really easy to forget and believe hope is somehow gone. Blinders go up and I keep tabs on only what I’m feeling. Then I get so inwardly focused I’m sure there isn’t a drop of hope left anywhere on this planet.

Yet, there is hope enough for me. For you. For our whole mess of a country and the world.

Left to my own devices, my mind does not conjure pretty things. The hope I have comes from knowing the God who holds me.

Knowing God sounds so “Bible college and churchy” but it’s true. He wouldn’t have given us His personal name if He didn’t want us to know Him. Neither would He have put all of His plans for the world in a Book and told the story of how He came in from the backside of our history to save us from ourselves.

Remembering how deeply I am loved by the God of the universe is the only way to truly hope.

Each day I fought my own Hope Nazi while trying to convince my girl to keep perspective.

Then you simply take it day by day. Sometimes moment by moment. Time gets to be a non-construct when you’re home for yet another day and the day after that and the day after… you get the idea.

But you get through it. That’s the whole point, right? Getting through it.

The rest of our life will not be stuck in quarantine. Just like my life isn’t diapers, blowouts, sippy cups and timeouts like I thought it was going to be back when I had a 4 year old, 2 year old and a new baby.

We’ve gotten through that and managed to laugh even as we wanted to cry.

So we will get through this. We will.

There is hope for you! And you… and you!