hope.

The past few days - maybe weeks, I have found myself regularly reaching for my giving keys necklace. It was a gift from my dear sweet friend Amanda in the midst of a particularly challenging season. On the face of the key, inscribed is the word HOPE. I find I am a particularly leaky vessel when it comes to hope. I strain to hold onto it, and yet it filters through my fingers and fades away. I always need more…just another ounce. 

Last night, I was lying on my bed…on an ice-pack…and basically preaching to myself as the tears poured down my cheeks. Reminding myself of Truth. Speaking the words out-loud, praying they would resonate with my soul. “You are loved. You are worthy and acceptable and approved, exactly as you are in this very moment. Even if you are never married and never have a family of your own - you are living your BEST LIFE if you are chasing after Jesus and living in the very center of His will. His best dreams for you are the only adventures you can ever hope for - they’re more than you can imagine. You do not have to see it now. You do not have to make sense of this. You do not have to feel it in this moment, and it is ok to wrestle with all of it. BUT YOU ARE WANTED AND YOU ARE CHOSEN. The Creator of the entire universe picked you…you are not small in His sight, you are precious and beloved and you must cling tight.”

It is SO easy to let the circumstances of our lives and the feelings of the moment dictate our responses and reactions. Pain is real. For me pain is real both physically and emotionally, and yet God is the Author of every detail. He is able. He is sovereign. Where He is limitless, I am so very human and thereby exceptionally limited. If I allow the gravity of my past or even my current circumstances to dictate my future expectations, I stop trusting the voice of my Father. I have to keep approaching the throne with confidence - and I lose all sense of boldness and courage if I am looking at the weakness and frailty of nature - I have to look at the face of my King. FOR I KNOW WHOM I HAVE BELIEVED AND AM PERSUADED THAT HE IS ABLE! 

“This is the confidence we have in approaching God: if we asking anything according to his will, He hears us. And if we know that He hears us - whatever we ask - we know that we have what we asked of Him.” 1 John 5:14-15

Only there will I find hope…and courage…and expectancy. Only there can I put aside the thoughts that seem to fill my mind with words like impossible and steady myself in Him alone.