Finding Hope at the River

Sometimes a walk to the river is the answer.

We have been virtually housebound for two months. It is getting warm enough to sit on the back porch with the warmth of a heater, but today was gloriously warm and I chose to walk to the river.

The river felt necessary today. The seasons are changing, and these branches will quickly fill with leaves, but today, they were bare with only a hint of new buds. Maybe I needed to see life returning to the trees along the river. Maybe I needed that hope.

Rivers are deeply symbolic in my story. Not this river, but finding myself living by a river after so many years feels like a full-circle moment.

It has been a difficult few months and the words from the song, Down to the River by Jordan Feliz drifted through my mind as I watched the water pass by.

Like a tide, it is rising up deep inside a current
That moves and makes it come alive
Living water that brings the dead to life. . .

There is no way to stop the flow of the river that carries us through life, but sometimes we can clamber up the rocks and stand back to watch it go by. We can pause just long enough to find glimmers of hope in the rolling currents.