I've realized this week that hope changes everything.
I'm a single mom. I've got four kids. I run a business (with help from two awesome business partners). I drive a car with 266, 000 miles on it. I want to help my kids pursue every dream they have which results in my forking out cash for piano lessons, voice lessons, basketball shoes, and lots of other stuff. We need a new car. Soon. We live in a GREAT apartment, but my kids want a house with a yard. They want a dog. And I want to be able to give them those things.
So what does this have to do with hope? Well, the last few weeks have been stressful for me because I had lost hope. Wedding deposits weren't coming in as quickly as I had hoped. My car needed some minor repairs. Rent was due. The kids wanted money for book fair. A good friend let me down. I dealt with a very difficult parenting issue. All of this kept weighing on my mind, and as much as I hate to admit it, I succumbed to the feeling of hopelessness. It snowballed, and I froze. I was paralyzed with fear.
That's when it hit me. Without hope, we wilt. I could feel my heart wilting this week. It desperately needed some sun. Just when I thought I might lose it, I felt the warm rays of sunshine in my soul. A bride booked a wedding. Another bride booked a consultation. Even as I typed this paragraph, another wedding inquiry showed up in my inbox.
There are so many "things" we can hope for that will let us down. If I'm sitting here waiting for a tall, dark, handsome man to come sweep me off my feet, I'm eventually going to lose hope when he doesn't show up. If I'm waiting for the day that I have no financial stress, I'm going to be disappointed. Even millionaires have financial stress... WAY worse than mine! If I expect my kids to be perfect, they're going to let me down. If I never allow myself to make a mistake, then I'm only going to disappoint myself.
The point is that I have to put my hope in something bigger. If these things that caused stress for me this week were NEVER resolved, I can still find hope in the One who never fails me. His promises are real. His love is real. His mercies are new every morning.
Don't know Him? Then you should get to know Him.
"Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we boast in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us."
Romans 5:1-5
