It’s a fine line—between hope and regret.

Hope is the anticipation of a better future. Regret is disappointment with what has been. Without some sense of disappointment with what-is, would we look forward to something better?

I'm disappointed that I’ve not made better use of the time given me; and that regret is, in a strange way, what prompts me to look forward and anticipate God’s movement and good favor in the coming days and age to come.

My oldest daughter is starting her sophomore year of college. This is the term when she moves into a house. No longer in the dorm, or living in our home, our daughter has become a grownup with her own house.

So I remember how I felt at age 20. I had no regrets and imagined all the progress I would make in 20 years! Fall season in Boulder, Colorado has a way of making you feel pretty good about most things; so does ski season; so does springtime... Okay, it’s always nice in Boulder, Colorado.

I had years ahead of me to earn a degree, date, enter and grow up in a vocation, make a home, be with a husband, enjoy children, serve the cause of Christ in this world…

This morning my prayer expressions to God had much to do with disappointment. I’m not the person I’d planned to become in these 20 years. I had hoped for more progress—vocationally, domestically and spiritually. In other words: I wish I were more studied and accomplished, a more loving and attentive partner to my husband and mother to my children, a more dedicated and effective servant of Christ and someone with a surer sense of self.

But these disappointments are the basis of my hope. They keep me asking God for help, deliverance and strength. These disappointments keep me waiting and watching for the movement of God.

The cry? It’s pretty simple: How long? God’s answer is implicit: Forever and a day—that’s how long it will take to make you.

"Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. 8 For everyone who asks receives; those who seek find; and to those who knock, the door will be opened.
    9 "Which of you, if your son asks for bread, will give him a stone? 10 Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? 11 If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him! 12 So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets.
    13 "Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. 14 But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.