The God of Hope

It was a warm summer day as I was driving across the Midwest. It was just going to be a short trip for some continuing education at a conference. Instead it had become a painful reminder of what wasn't. I drove past places that all haunted me with what could have been.

And I remembered what I almost had, only to have it gone.

Sometimes it takes seeing what you could have to make you realize what you don't have and just how much you want it. Such had been the case in what I had lost.

As I drove along I-70, self-pity threatened to engulf my little car.

Earlier that week, I had cancelled most of my long-awaited summer plans at the last minute because of a family crisis. Cancelling them wasn't that bad, but it just confirmed to me that hoping and planning for anything I wanted was a bad idea.

Then, there had been something else that I hoped would work out. And clearly, even today, I could see that it wasn't going to. It seemed that I had everything that I really didn't care about and none of the things that I wanted the most. I might as well bury that fading dream, too, and move on with my life... and not be so hopeful. Yes, hope. That was my problem. I hoped too much for things that I wasn't in charge of. I should know better by now - so often life didn't turn out as I would have hoped.

A few tears threatened to spill out and I stared hard into the cornfields. Sometimes it was easier to pretend I didn't care about these disappointments. But I really did care. A whole lot.

Maybe, I reasoned to myself, I should just plan for nothing. I'll be pleasantly surprised if anything happens the way I wish it would.

And then that still, small Voice spoke: "But I'm the God of Hope. Remember?" (Romans 15:13)

"Why do you discount and throw away hope when that is My very essence and character? I AM Hope!"

I gripped the steering wheel, glad I was all alone for hours more so I could have this conversation with God by myself. "B-But, I've tried hope. Hope makes me miserable. I don't want to hope anymore... I want to just live in reality - that life is hard and unfair, that the people and things that I love the most get crushed and torn apart, wrenched from my hands and heart. If I just plan for that, I won't get so disappointed. It's much less painful to live that way."

Case in point - this most recent disappointment. I had hoped that perhaps it was God doing something that I'd been waiting on and praying about for such a very long time. And then this... just nothingness. He wasn't doing something with that after all. Why did I think He was?

My gentle Lord continued probing. "Mary, you choose to believe a lie when you act like I'm not going to be good to you in this. You choose to believe a lie when you act as though you will reap sorrow when you sow good things. Do you not believe me when I say that those who sow to the Spirit, will of the Spirit reap LIFE everlasting? (Galatians 6:8) The Life that I give is an abundant one, not a dreary existence. Was it not obedience to ME that led you to say 'no' to what you wanted most?"

Silence.

Sigh.

"It's not that I don't believe that You're good, God. You're just not necessarily going to give me all these things that I want so much in life. You are more than good if all you give me is Yourself and heaven. I'm going to lower my expectations and be happy with that."

Mary?

I knew that Voice ~ God knocking on the door of my weary heart.

Yes?

"Mary, I'm the God of HOPE! Not the God of frequent disappointment, as you're making Me out to be! To think anything less of Me is wrong. Why are you making a resolution to live as though I will disappoint you?"

I felt so rebuked... slapped almost. Why had I been believing such things about God?

Silence.

Thinking.

The God of all hope... what does that mean in real naked truth?

First of all, Hope is not synonymous with demanding my own way or thinking that the sea will part before me just because I desperately want it to.

Hope is inconvenient, very much so. It makes the hard things in life that much more painful, because often I had expected different. It can search my heart and motives to the very bottom.

I don't usually ask for hope, and often I don't actually want it.

What I really want is for the desire to go away, or be granted.

As much as we find ourselves praying for what we want, sometimes God doesn't restore broken dreams, regardless of how right they may be. Sometimes He leaves them lying smashed all over the ground.

Sometimes the wayward children never come home and mothers receive phone calls that they died in a fight outside a bar last night. Sometimes lonely ex-spouses pass away having never reconciled with the one who left. And sometimes cancer and disease creep over the body and people grow weaker and weaker til they're gone. Sometimes strong young boys lose their limbs and eyes and sanity in accidents and war and come home as broken men. Sometimes little girls get molested for years behind closed doors and no one ever hears their pleading, silent cries for help. Sometimes babies die, even after years and years of waiting for them. Sometimes the fiance who broke up never changes their mind and "comes around."

.

Hoping doesn't mean that I believe that God will never take something from me that I love dearly. Or that a God who loves me will never let my heart and my little world be broken. Or that He won't let everything I've spent my life working on swirl down the drain before my eyes.

So, then, in a disappointing and broken world... what is hope?

Hope is a steadfast confidence in the nature of God to do me good -- from creation, to Calvary and all the way into eternity to come. Hope is believing what I cannot see, simply because I know God. Hoping is walking on in the dark, because Jesus is there. Hope is about not quitting when all seems lost, because I know that God is greater than all of these things.

The Psalmist said it well when he made that little, but powerful statement: "Hope in God, for I shall yet praise Him..."

Hope in what? GOD.

And so I choose to continue to hope, to put my heart on the line, to be vulnerable and to trust that regardless of what I want, what I get will be good, because I'm staking my heart on GOD. God Himself will never disappoint me. A glimpse of God is enough to fill my soul and heal my heart.

Hope allows me to smile as I drive down I-70 and stare into the cornfields, even though all is not right in my little world.

Hope in my heart shouts to the pondering world that my God deserves to be trusted!

Why art thou cast down, O my soul?

And why are thou disquieted within me?

Hope thou in God....

For I shall yet praise Him,

Who is the health of my countenance, and my God.

Psalm 42:5,11

Doing the Unthinkable

To love means loving the unlovable.

To forgive means pardoning the unpardonable.

Faith means believing the unbelievable.

Hope means hoping when everything seems hopeless.

- G. K. Chesterton

"If God can bring blessing from the broken body of Jesus and glory from something that's as obscene as the cross, He can bring blessing from my problems and my pain and my unanswered prayer. I just have to trust Him."

Anne Graham Lotz

Early Morning Gratitute

I went for a run in the already warm, sticky, sun-coming-up-over-the-hills morning and

I found myself grateful for

a healthy body

great running shoes

an Ipod full of lovely music and thoughts and words

summertime

creeks babbling over polished stones

sun-dappled country roads with trees forming a canopy overhead

An hour alone without my phone ringing or people trying to talk to me

Liz back at home, singing and making breakfast

And most of all, my mind focused on the phrase:

"... the God of Hope..." (Romans 15:13) -- More on that, coming soon.

People I Can Tell "the Sad" To...

I was sitting at one of the tables with a dear, dear friend. I've known her for a long time. But I've come to love her even so much more in the last year as we've went through some of the same struggles together.

People all around us were chattering, laughing, catching up with old friends, meeting new ones. Both my friend and I knew quite a few of the people milling about the room. So, we leaned close and she lowered her voice. She was telling me about her day, her week.. the real one. Not the, "Oh, I'm fine" one. It had been emotional, draining, exhausting. Things had happened at work. Almost the same thing that had happened to me two years ago at my work. The medical field is hard... sometimes hard things happen. Then she'd seen someone she had loved and lost. It was awkward. It was hard, she explained. I nodded. Totally understand the feeling of tears welling up, things you wanted to say and yet didn't or couldn't, biting your lip, leaving... wishing that somehow that chapter of your life could have gone on, wishing you could forget it, wishing it wasn't, wishing it still was... Suddenly, I was lost in her world, feeling the pain of what had happened at work, what had happened at the Christmas party...

She apologized for only having negative things to talk about. "But that was your life this week," I insisted. "I wanted to hear about your real life... what's really happening! I didn't want to hear about the pretend life where everything is fine with you."

She might have thought it was depressing, but it reminded me that someone else walking the road of life has had the same experiences as I have. And if I told her about what happened to me at work two years ago, she'd really, truly understand. She'd grasp the enormity with which it left me reeling and unsure of myself for a long time.... I loved just knowing that somebody in the world would understand if I explained. Maybe I'll tell her about it someday. There's not many other people that would know what to say.

The other day one of my friends sent me a email, telling me her problems and how everything in her life seemed to be falling apart right now. How to hold it together, how to go on being a Christian, being a wife, being a mom, doing the additional things that she and her husband are sure God has called them to do, being so much else that she is.... that was the big, unanswered question. How? It wasn't working for her. She couldn't go on living this way. She was feeling suffocated and like few people even cared if it happened to her. She ended her message with, "I'm sorry this is all sad. But thanks for being a real friend that I can tell the sad to... I don't tell many people."

I've had plenty of the "the sad" this year. In several completely different areas of life. I can relate to the "I don't tell many people." Who is there to tell? About some of it ~ sure. But other things few people can relate to or need to know.

I certainly don't want to depress the rest of the world with the sad. Who wants to know while they're in labor or nursing their 3 day old baby that their midwife's life has been awful this week? Or sweet little girls that come up to me after church and hug me and ask me how I am... Of course I'm "doing good" ~ because God is always good. Is there any reason to try to explain to them why I tried not to cry through church, even though I almost never cry... before this year? I can smile. I will smile. I will go on living life and being grateful, because there are far more things to be happy about than there are things to be sad about.

Then there were other friends that I tried to explain some of "the sad" to, and the responses I received felt anything but compassionate or understanding. Sometimes that was good for me... to remember that regardless of how I feel or who has any idea of what "I need" or what a wreck my heart may be at that moment, my actions and responses must be out of love, not ungrateful reactions because all I was seeking was to have my own needs met.

And then there was the friend who said, "Let's go to the park. I'll bring a whole box of Kleenex and let's just sit there all afternoon. You can tell me the whole story."

Or the friend who texted me nearly every day for months on end to say, "How's your heart today, Mary?" and sent me cards. I knew she hurt with me. Because she was hurting in the same way herself. And I got to text her every day, too, and say, "How's yours? God is still good!"

And the midwife who I didn't know even knew what all was going on in my life and family who handed me a little envelope one day after a midwives meeting. When I had a chance to open it and look at the little piece of folded paper, torn out of one of her notebooks, it read, "Mary, it's well past 2 am, and I just can't stop thinking of you... I have no idea why your life had to hurt so much in so many ways this year. But I love you, and I cry for you and I pray for you..." I had no idea she even knew all of it. She must have known more than I thought she did. I cried and stuck the little note in my purse. And I found it the other day and stared at it with tears welling up in my eyes all over again to know that she knew and she cared.

And today. I stumbled across someone's Picasa album of photos online. I spent way too long looking, and remembering. Thinking about it consumed the rest of my day. 'Twas one of those things that very few people would understand. But God does.

And I talked to my little sister and she told me about her own heartaches while she washed dishes and I made cinnamon rolls tonight.

Cinnamon rolls because tomorrow another sister is coming over for brunch. Because tomorrow (well, I guess today now... I'm typing this well after midnight) was the due date for the first niece and grandchild in the family. A due date for a little girl who was already born months ago. All the traces left are the little metal marker pushed into the pile of clay and sod at the graveyard down the road and a few blankets and clothes we dressed her in after she was gone. Christine. She would have been being born, a chubby 7 or 8 pounds right about now. Our baby girl, just in time for Christmas. But she came in August. We're glad she came at all. We're glad Josh and Jemima had a little girl and that she still lives... in heaven!

And I think about my friend's email, "I don't tell many people the sad. Thanks for listening." I haven't had a chance to reply yet. But I'm glad she can tell me the sad. Because I do feel for her, and I pray for her.

And I'm glad I have a few friends who I can tell the sad to, who don't try to make it all better. They just put their arm around me and sit there with me.

And I'm glad I have sisters who say, "I'm glad we can talk to each other, even if nobody outside of our family would even understand this."

And I'm glad I have a mother who senses when I come home from a long day of prenatals with so much more than prenatals on my mind and says, "I found this verse today that I thought was just for you: 'O the depth of the riches of both the wisdom and knowlege of God! How unsearchable are His judgements and His ways past finding out.' " (Romans 11:33) Yes, Mama... You're right. God is wise, and He's always right. I can trust Him.

And I'm glad I have a dad who calls me when I have a long drive home just to see if I'm staying awake and to say, "Drive safe! I love you!"

And I'm glad I have a brother who's had his own share of struggles this year who comes home once in awhile and says, "I know it's midnight, but ya wanna walk a few miles and talk?"

And I'm glad for the other people in my life who care and hurt and pray with me. And people who love me enough to tell me when my responses to what life brings aren't Christ-like.

Most of all, I'm glad that Jesus knows and interceeds on my behalf before the Throne of Grace. Somedays even the nicest and best people in the world don't understand or they don't know and it wouldn't be right to burden their day with my heartaches.

But God wants to hear them from me. Psalms is mostly the troubled heart of David being poured out honestly before God - exalting God rightfully, but not hiding his hurt and confusion and longings.

It's not like God doesn't already know every thought on my mind. It's just that He wants ME to remember that HE is the Source of my life and HE is the reason I get up and go on and again and again and HE is bright Hope for the future! He waits for me to come tell Him about my joys and sorrows.

He delights to show me that He loves me by sending little boys with smushed fistfuls of weeds to my car with adoring little sisters by their sides who say, "Miss Mary, you look lobely today!" when I show up to do a home prenatal visit.

Or when I catch a snatch of the song my sister is singing at the kitchen sink: "ALL I have needed, Thy Hand hath provided... GREAT is Thy Faithfulness, Lord, unto ME!!" Or when I dig through my pile of mail (bills) and discover a card from a dear friend telling me she's praying for me.

Gone Too Soon, Loved So Much....

"Safe in the arms of Jesus,
Safe from corroding care,
Safe from the world's temptations,
Sin cannot harm me there."

I hadn't even announced on my blog that my sister was pregnant.... and now she isn't any more... My first little niece was born on Sunday morning, August 15th, quite suddenly and unexpectedly.

23 1/2 weeks
15 ounces
almost 11 inches

She lived for 9 hours.

Her mommy and daddy (Josh and Jemima) named her Christine Hope as they gave her back to the One Who had made her so perfectly.

The tears have been flowing freely but we're okay somehow, knowing that the purpose of her life was to glorify God. She has done that, and her little self will continue to do that before the Throne of God eternally.

Could we ask anything else of her life?

The Living of These Days

Lo! The hosts of evil round us

Scorn Thy Christ, assail His ways!

Fears and doubts too long have bound us,

Free our hearts to work and praise.

Grant us wisdom, grant us courage,

For the living of these days.

Cure Thy children's warring madness,

Bend our pride to Thy control;

Shame our wanton, selfish gladness,

Rich in things and poor in soul.

Grant us wisdom, grant us courage,

Lest we miss Thy Kingdom's goal.

Set our feet on lofty places;

Gird our lives that they may be

Armed with Christ-like graces

In the fight to set man free.

Grant us wisdom, grant us courage,

That we fail not man nor Thee!

Save us from our weak resignation

To the evils we deplore;

Let the search for Thy salvation

Be our glory evermore.

Grant us wisdom, grant us courage,

Serving Thee whom we adore....

John Hughes, 1873-1932

Welsh hymn melody

Somebody Bigger... by Jemima

My sister, Jemima, shared this as a devotion at a baby shower awhile ago. I asked her if she would be willing to edit it for the my blog in written format. She has graciously agreed. I hope that her thoughts bless you as much as they have blessed me. :) - Mary


I am a fix everything kind of a person. I want everything to be comfortable—not necessarily luxurious and it does not have to be the best. But I can’t tolerate anything “really bad”... and even if its not my business, I try to “fix” it.

At times when I see people suffering, it makes me think of the horror of eternal suffering in hell. That is “really bad” and I start to feel a feverish panic to immediately reach every lost soul with the gospel myself.

And then sometimes - horror of horrors - the thought crosses my mind, “What if the soul of one of MY siblings is lost to Satan?” I want to think, “No, not one in MY family—I’ll do anything to make sure that doesn’t happen.” But God has not put on Christian homes some kind of guarantee that makes them immune to the possibility of one of their children rejecting Christ, and I know that. The thought puts terror in my heart.

Sometimes I’ve even thought to myself, Maybe I don’t want to have children of my own if it’s a possibility that any of them may not spend eternity in heaven. The thought brings with it more pain than I can bear to think about.

Other things frighten me...

In a day when 80 or 90 percent of evangelical college age Americans leave church never to return…

When there is so much international instability, and so much power in the hands of people who are evil…

When 40% of “Christian” men admit to having a problem with pornography, and 20% of women do (and I know these stats are accurate because so many of my own friends weep as the reality of this demon threatens their own marriages and engagements)…

When it’s not just the neighbors who are getting divorced, but the people who were my role models for family life doing it, too…

What makes me think I can have a good marriage or raise children who will turn out right?

Mothers send ahead to a time they will never see.
Their children will face battles they have never fought.
If death ended all, that would be one thing.

But sometimes I think about how long eternity is—eternity past, as well as the forever that is still ahead of all eternal souls. The mental picture of being suspended in such an incomprehensively huge expanse of time…is scary.
Sometimes even facts like the limitless size of outer space—the idea that
if you were somehow propelled out of the reach of gravity, you would go on and
on forever into nothingness…sometimes the size of the universe makes me feel insecure.

And when I think of all these things, I cry out, “God, it’s too BIG! Eternity is too long! Hell is too bad! Why did You make souls capable of destroying themselves, of turning away from You? Why did you make human souls eternal? Why does life have to matter so much? I can’t even begin to fix the really bad physical problems in this world, much less the Spiritual ones in a scheme this big. I can’t keep everything okay!”

And then it’s like He says to me, “So you’re scared, Jemima? So you think I’ve made everything too big for you to control—beyond your ability to maintain at some mediocre level? You’re exactly right. I didn’t put YOU in charge of the universe.”

Somebody a little bigger than me is in charge. Just the infinite God who designed the billions of galaxies and placed them billions of light years apart—just Him.

And He reminds me again and again that ending human misery is not to be my chief objective—His glory must come first. He is weaving everything into a reality filled with great joy and also deep pain—pain that’s deeper than I would have it be, and joy beyond my wildest thoughts.

He doesn’t go for my flat, mediocre plans.

Here are a few verses that try to explain to our little minds what a huge God and what a good God we have:

“…I am He; I am the first, and I am the last. My right hand also hath laid the foundations of the earth, and my right hand hath spanned the heavens…”
Isaiah 48:12, 13

“And I say unto you my friends, be not afraid of them that kill the body, and after that have no more that they can do. But I will forewarn you whom ye shall fear: fear him which after he hath killed hath power to cast into hell: yea I say unto you, fear him.” Luke 12:4, 5

“Yes, Lord, I’m scared of You…Scared enough to accuse You of injustice when it comes to putting souls in hell. But not enough to honour You above people when You want me to do the right thing when it’s socially unacceptable.”

“All we like sheep have gone astray, we have turned everyone to his own way…”
Isaiah 53:6

“I care about people, God…I don’t like to see them suffer! But I don’t care enough to do anything that actually makes ME suffer very much. Don’t ask me to give up something I like doing for the sake of someone else! Don’t ask me to do something I don’t like!”

“…But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities, and the chastisement of our peace was upon Him, and by His stripes we are healed…He was oppressed, and He was afflicted, yet He opened not his mouth: He is brought as a lamb to the slaughter…He was cut off out of the land of the living: for the transgression of my people was He stricken. And He made His grave with the wicked, and with the rich in His death; because He had done no violence, neither was their any deceit in His mouth. Yet it pleased the LORD to bruise Him; He hath put Him to grief: when thou shalt make His soul an offering for sin He shall see His seed, He shall prolong His days and the pleasure of the LORD shall prosper in His hand. He shall see of the travail of His soul and shall be satisfied. By His knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many, for He shall bear their iniquities.”
Isaiah 53:5-11

“God…hath in these last times spoken unto us by his son, whom he appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds; who being the brightness of his glory and the express image of his person when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right of the majesty on high." Hebrews 1:1, 2

“I have not spoken in secret, in a dark place of the earth: I said not unto the seed of Jacob, Seek ye me in vain. I the LORD speak righteousness, I declare things that are right. Assemble yourselves and come; draw near together, ye that are escaped of the nations… Who hath declared this from ancient time? Have not I the LORD? And there is no God else beside me; a just God, and a Saviour; there is none beside me. Look unto me, and be ye saved, all ends the ends of the earth: for I am God, and there is none else. I have sworn by myself, the word is gone out of my mouth in righteousness and shall not return, That unto me every knee shall bow… Surely, shall one say, In the LORD have I righteousness and strength: even to him shall men come; and all that are incensed* against him shall be ashamed.”
Isaiah 45:19--24

*in·cense tr.v. in·censed, in·cens·ing, in·cens·es: To cause to be extremely angry; infuriate.

* * * *

God’s glory must be my goal. Then I can live joyfully. I can bear children for His glory if He calls me to it someday — not because I know they will never feel pain and because I can control all the circumstances of my childrens' lives. Not because I can make sure each dear baby will grow up to choose Christ.

No, but rather, because a constantly just, and incredibly merciful God will always be in charge of their eternal souls.


Here is my version of something CS Lewis wrote:
“Is He quite safe?” she asked.
“Safe?!” they replied. “Who ever heard of safe? He is King of kings and Lord of lords! Safe? No, He is not safe, but His is God, and He is good.”

Hope through me, God of Hope

Hope through me, God of Hope,
Or never can I know
Deep wells and living streams of Hope,
And pools of overflow.

Flood me with Hope today
For souls perverse, undone,
For sinful souls that turn away,
Blind sunflowers to their Sun.

O blessed Hope of God,
Flow through me patiently,
Until I hope for everyone
As thou hast hoped for me.

Amy Carmichael