Bill has a bright red 1973 Chevrolet Impala convertible that he bought in 1973.
We’ve put about a thousand miles a year on it by driving it around the Indiana
countryside on summer evenings. … Our son [Benjy] was three when we got that
car, his sister Amy was four, and Suzanne was eight!
Back then we would buckle them in and cover their legs with the blue and green
quilt we’d kept from our first motor home and sing our way through the fields of
winter wheat, corn, and soybeans to the accompaniment of crickets and cicadas
until the sunset faded.
Then we made our way back into town and stopped for chocolate-vanilla-twist
ice-cream cones at Dor-tees. This ritual has been celebrated now for over thirty
years in the same red convertible. Now, we take the [seven] grandkids on the same
adventure.
The magic moment of the trip is when Bill slows down somewhere along County
Road 400 and pulls into a well-worn path. He turns off the engine and says, “Sh-h-h,
listen. Do you hear it?” Like they’ve never done it before, the kids – grown or small
– get quiet, quiet enough to hear the sound of fresh, cold water gurgling up from
some deep place through a pope someone sank into the clay down to the pebbles
below. We listen. “Where does it come from?” the youngest child is sure to ask
again.
“Who knows?” Bill always answers, “Deep in the ground. It’s been flowing – that
well – for as long as my grandpa could remember. Want to get a drink?”
There is a place in the human spirit where we can always go to be surprised
by hope. In the most unlikely of circumstances, at the times when hope seems
impossible to find, there is a spring coming from the deep places – a well of living
water bursting to the surface of our days.
No matter how unwise the choices that may have led us to our place of despair;
there is always a road back home. Friends may desert us, promises may be broken,
lost can become a way of life. But the Father has provided a spring along our journey
if we will just stop there, get still enough to hear and honest enough to admit our
thirst. There is always – always – a place called Hope.
A Place Called Hope
Lyric: Gloria Gaither Music: William J. Gaither and Jeff Silvey
Copyright © 2006 Gaither Music Company and HeartDreams Publishing (admin. By IGC). All rights reserved.
Had it all one day;
Threw it all away—
Took my leave with no goodbye.
Bought some company;
Bragged how we were free—
Laughed and looked death in the eye—
Even far away
In a foreign place
Where the hunger gnawed my soul,
Still my heart would long
For love’s old sweet song
And a fire when the nights were cold.
There’s a road somewhere;
There’s an open door;
There’s a hill where the green grass grows—
There’s a family fest
Where there’s joy and peace . . .
Goin’ back to a place called Hope
Fickle friends are gone;
Wasted years are long,
And regret can bring you low—
But there’s a swift embrace;
There’s amazing grace—
There’s a place where lost sons go.
There’s a road somewhere;
There’s an open door;
There’s a hill where the green grass grows—
There’s a family fest
Where there’s joy and peace . . .
Goin’ back to a place called Hope