In hope he believed against hope, that he should become the father of many nations, as he had been told. (Romans 4:18)

Sometimes, as we get to this point in the year, it seems that winter will go on forever. It’s been cold for so long that you can hardly remember the last time you put on a pair of shorts and basked in the warmth of the sun. You are so sick of shoveling the driveway that you would almost rather go to the dentist with an impacted wisdom tooth than go through another snowstorm. The trees have been bare for so long that you wonder whether things like flowers and leaves are just figments of your imagination.

If you have little children, you are just trying to hang on until the spring. By now, your kids are practically bouncing off the walls because they have been kept inside for …