When you think about hope and encouragement, what do you picture in your mind? Can you visualize hope and encouragement? What does it look like to you?

The great Alice Walker wrote the book “The Color Purple” for seemingly many reasons. Of course, the most glaring purpose was to bring awareness to the plight of black women during the turn of the century. The title of the book doesn’t seem to make sense, though, until close to the end. But that’s only if you catch it.

“I think it pisses God off if you walk by the color purple in a field somewhere and don’t notice it. People think pleasing God is all God cares about. But any fool living in the world can see it always trying to please us back.” ~ Shug Avery 

In a book full of turmoil and strife, Alice Walker named the book for what she believed was hope and encouragement. Think about it, how often do you see purple naturally in the world? Purple is so rare that people would pay to find specific flowers to mix and make fabrics for the royals. Of course, now we have many ways to fabricate it, but seeing purple in its natural element is a gift from God. 

I think Shug is right. We do tend to always work to please God without stopping to recognize that He’s left us little love notes of hope and encouragement throughout the earth.

Enjoy the blooms

Here’s another example. God gave cherry blossoms to the Asian countries, who in turn shared them with the United States. We gather and celebrate these beautiful blooms because we understand that they are temporary and we want to enjoy them while we can. But we also know that they will return the next year. These trees give us hope and encourage us to celebrate and enjoy God’s gift because it is rare. Just like the color purple.

In a few days, we will celebrate the death and resurrection of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. For most Christians, it is not difficult to understand how those three days over 2000 years ago give us hope and encouragement. For others, Easter has become another commercialized holiday focused on meaningless symbols. Thankfully God has created us all to be a beacon of light for Him to give others hope and encourage each other to remain strong. I pray that this month’s guide strengthens you and your light for Christ so that others can be encouraged through you.

As always, I’m also including a cell phone wallpaper/calendar for April, and a new Gospel Spotify playlist so we can praise Him together through song. If you have any music suggestions, leave a comment and let me know what you’d like me to include for next month.

He is Risen!