From a Morning of Wonder to a Night of Hope

Friday morning found me on the dock in my backyard contemplating God’s wonder as He woke the world.

It ended with my head resting on a hotel pillow in Baton Rouge, LA beside my darling man, trying to find a place to park a jumble of emotions. The hours in between hold a story of dream, perseverance, and hope. A Night of Hope.

Night of Hope was the inaugural charity event put on by my daughter and her husband, Patrick and Jessica Maher, to benefit their non-profit foundation, Hope Without Borders. 

You can read about the foundation, the beauty and promise of Hope Houses, and how the dream was born in Jessica’s heart during a mission trip to El Salvador at her website, along with how you can get involved here and now in the onset of something amazing. God’s kind of amazing, His specialty actually– sacrificial, unconditional, you can’t pay it back love.

The Apostle Paul once said that nothing matters except faith working through love,  (Galatians 5:6). That’s saying a lot from the man who penned a large part of the New Testament under the influence of God’s Holy Spirit.

Vertical faith expressing itself in horizontal love.  Those are my words, not Paul’s, so take ’em with salt, but it’s what the verse means to me. I hear those words as I think about Hope Without Borders and consequently, The Night of Hope.

Meet my daughter, Jessica Maher. Her dad and I, along with her brother Phillip and his wife Carey, teared up as she took the microphone to open the evening and introduce a short video clip she had created to tell the story of Hope Without Borders.

Granted, our tears came from a place of knowing a bit of the struggle Jessica has faced this year behind the scenes.

This could be where I talk about the myriad of details, roadblocks, and frustrations that assail Jessica on her mission to build Hope Houses for the least of these and how she has been challenged over and again to believe in the call. It’s what I thought I might do, but even now I realize how that isn’t the story that needs to be told.

The real story, the one she would want me to tell, is how we are each given the opportunity to take our everyday commonplace lives and abilities and offer them to a God who sees the end from the beginning and is waiting for us to lay hold of the reason He has laid hold of us.

Not that I have already obtained it or have already become perfect, but I press on so that I may lay hold of that for which also I was laid hold of by Christ Jesus. Philippians 3:12

As God would have it, this is the message that was presented to the attendees Friday night, from the first words spoken on stage, through the guest speakers, to the last stroke of art. But speaking of overcoming, it was to be the theme of a beautiful evening.

Missy Robertson, wife of Jase Robertson, and star of A&E’s hit reality show Duck Dynasty made a special guest appearance, despite being only three weeks out from daughter Mia’s 5th cleft palette surgery. This was a major operation designed to pull Brave Mia’s jaw forward, and one which includes a tough recovery season that requires Missy to tighten the screws in her daughter’s jaw every day– stopping only when Mia can feel the pain. During her prepared remarks, Missy opined on how she is the same person she has always been, long before the world became fascinated with her family. Missy spoke of how she never would’ve dreamed the Lord could use her like He has, and then she challenged everyone listening to realize that this special evening was being presented to them as an opportunity to live lives that would impact the world, too!

Following Missy on the podium was another beloved figure of Duck Dynasty, the slow-talking Mountain Man who charmed the audience with his admission that they didn’t give him many minutes on air, possibly because it took him so long to say his lines. And, like Missy, Mountain Man went on to share his surprise at being on a hit television show. Just as Missy had done before him, Mountain Man opened his Bible to focus on the gospel of Jesus Christ instead of concentrating on the fleeting illusion of fame.

In addition to a delicious four course meal we were also treated to the brilliance of David Garibaldi, a performance artist whose live high energy creations of spectacular artwork left us all spellbound at his gift.

In mere minutes an LSU Tiger came to life before our eyes, along with a jazz musician in honor of the region’s heritage. But it was his finale, the beautiful face of Christ, that moved this writer.

Phil and I were blessed to enjoy this evening with our kids and their spouses and we look forward to what the future holds for Hope Without Borders.

We invite you to be a part of this work. May the love of God, the grace of Christ Jesus and the friendship of the Holy Spirit be with you all. Thank you.

Hugs, Shellie