Harebell

This is harebell, sometimes called Scottish bluebell. My photographs are poor; the flower is so small and delicate that the lens could not focus, for it kept shaking in the modest breeze. Christina Rossetti wrote

Hope is like a harebell, trembling from its birth.

Hope is delicate and easily crushed, it is often small and likely overlooked. Biblical hope is not blindly ‘hoping for the best’. It is stronger than that, an optimism based upon God’s own faithfulness and love. Psalm 31:24 urges:

Be of good courage, and he shall strengthen your heart, all ye that hope in the Lord.

Though my hope is sometimes small and trembling, the One in whom I hope is strong and imposing.