Hope

HOPE. We throw it in like a pseudo-synonym for crossing our fingers. But lately the weight of the word has been sinking deep in me. 

I work at a day job where I stare into faces devoid of hope. And it isn’t just my students in their too small jeans and unkempt hair- traces of an old bruise that I can never be sure came from typical kid blunders or a parent’s heavily thrown backhand. 

It isn’t only the dads with altered smiles due to the meth that took their teeth. Or the mothers who roll in wearing overly low tank tops, fuzzy jammie pants, house shoes, and what appears to be a countenance of confidence but really comes across as fear in the way they won’t hold eye contact. And it isn’t even the other teachers who confess their frustrations in a way that makes you know the only hoping they do is hope the school day ends without any major screw ups or another blow of devastating news. Really, it’s all of it. It’s everyone. It’s no one. Hope is hard to find. 

Sometimes I feel like the life I lead is small. I’m Kathleen Kelly - I feel like a lone reed leading a valuable but small life. I’m caught up in paperwork and planning, reading data and high stakes testing. It’s easy for me to forget that’s not why I’m there. CRTs are never someone’s ministry. My ministry is HOPE. I have it. I point to it. I wallow in it, so Jesus can leave traces of it everywhere I go. 

When I took this job as a teacher, I thought I knew what I was getting into. We never know. Why do we always think we know? Sometimes I even catch myself saying, “I finally understand what God is doing!” Even in my mind I’m cracking up at that ridiculousness. 

I thought I would teach kids things like math and reading strategies. How to master an outline like a boss. Maybe even how to navigate a relationship with a peer. Instead, God knew what he was doing. Because HE knows the plans he has for me. HE knows. So instead of teaching writing and reading and science, this month alone (9 days into October) I have done what feels like everything except teach letters and numbers. 

This month I prayed for a woman who was trying to decide whether or not she should abort her baby. She’s well into her second trimester, but the doctors think the baby will be deformed. No arms. “There’s no HOPE.”

I also held an 11 year old boy while he sobbed on the playground because his mom is going to jail. He’s the oldest of many children. He’s without HOPE. 

I spent time at the broken home of a student and watched as mom, dad, and stepmom tried hard to be civil and push their hurts and insecurities down deep. Their HOPE is small. 

I prayed for a co-worker who is at the end of her choices before chemo and radiation are her only HOPE. 

I watched a little girl attempt to navigate the trauma of learning people in her extended family were murdered. She missed school for the funeral. She said she’s fine. She doesn’t need to talk to anyone. And it’s true that her face is straight and she seems unscathed by it all, but when we ask mom about it, she begins to list the trauma this little girl has already walked through. It’s heavy enough to make my eyes get misty and forget for a second where my HOPE comes from. 

As I took it all in, I tried to come up with all the ways I could fix these problems. Some great plan to help everyone not hurt so much. But every plan seemed to only put me in the way—God’s way. I needed to love in small ways and leave room for God to be powerful. If I don’t, then I leave no room for HOPE. there’s no space for God to say, “I got this”.

I don’t know how any of these stories end. I don’t know if that woman chose to terminate her pregnancy - a little girl who I call Hope when I pray for her. A little girl I would scoop up myself and let her use my arms to hug us both until our hearts burst if God would just say the word. 

I don’t know if my co-worker will live. I will never see that little girls family reconciled with a life cut short. I don’t know how to help any of them. Not on my own. 

But I can share my HOPE. I can give it away. I can recognize that I was created for such a time as this. I can be a lone reed standing tall and burning brightly, pointing the way toward HOPE. 

Jeremiah 29:11 says, “’For I know the plans I have for you,’ declares the LORD, ‘plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.’” We can be tempted to look at this verse and get caught up on the part that says God has plans. But maybe the more important part is that God knows the plans. He knew our hardship was coming, and even better, he knows exactly where it’s going. And the whole time we can confidently trust in the God of Hope.

Written by Shontell Brewer, blogger and author at www.shontellbrewer.com. Used with permission.

The Comfort of Consistency

“Listen to Me, O house of Jacob,
And all the remnant of the house of Israel,
You who have been borne by Me from birth
And have been carried from the womb;
Even to your old age I will be the same,
And even to your graying years I will bear you!”
(Isaiah 46:3-4a NASB)

Dad Gamble had been in the hospital a few days and was feeling better. “I like living with you and Ray,” he said during my visit. “In the morning, honey, you come in with a cup of coffee and put it on my bed tray. You open the blinds so I can see the sun rise.” Then he continued, repeating our daily routine. In that strange hospital room in a new town and a new state, reflecting on our everyday habits gave him comfort. Remembering the consistent routine we had established at home helped him cope with the surprise and change at the hospital. Simply listing what was normal was reassuring.

“Nina,” says my four-year-old grandson. “When I go back to living in Virginia and you come to visit, will there still be a present every day when I wake up?” This little guy and his family are living with us temporarily, so in this household, much to his sadness, there are not presents every day. However, he thinks back on the familiar and loves remembering the consistent promise that when Nina and Papa visit, there’s always a fun bag with a treasure when you wake up and come downstairs in the morning. He is comforted to think that this routine will re-emerge once he’s back home again. It eases the unfamiliarity of living in a new place for a season.

No matter our age, consistency matters. Even though rituals and routines can feel boring at times, the lack of any rhythm to a life creates confusion and chaos and fear. We are most contented when we know what to expect and when those expectations are met. Just about everyone chooses certain patterns of living that guarantee each day has some certainties.

This beautiful passage in Isaiah is God’s way of telling us that there is great certainty in being His. Those of us born into His family are carried by Him. And “even to our old age” God will not change. He will be the same, and even to our “graying years” God will bear us.

Every week, I see a little more gray in my brown hair—the graying years have arrived. I’m Nina to five grandchildren with one on the way, and my hair will gray more with each passing year. Oh, how I am comforted by this passage! Since I was a little one of four, kneeling, and asking Jesus to come into my heart, my good, great God has carried me. He has been with me in good times and hard times. The reassurance that He will never abandon me lifts me up and makes me smile. The consistent love of my God is a wonderful comfort.

Dear Lord, thank You for Your deep, consistent love. I could barely understand what I was doing when I was four, and yet You loved me and carried me. When I’m very old, I suspect I may not be able to do too much then either—except love You and pray. And You will continue to love me even then. And, when I pass from this life to eternity, there You will be! Loving me still. Oh, how glad I am to be Yours. Thank you, in Jesus’ Name, Amen.

Originally written and published by Sharon Gamble of Sweet Selah Ministries. Used with permission.

Sharing the Load

People always ask me how I do everything. Truth is, I don't! This guy right here literally carries the load.😉

Let me share with you a few things we do as a couple that has helped us stay strong in our marriage:

1) Think the best of one another, not the worst.

2) He gives me back-massages, which always leads to mutual intimacy.😉

3) Be a team player. Share the load. Literally.

4) If you're frustrated about something, speak up in a kind way, after the kids have gone to bed and you've had a few minutes to chill first.

5) Being opposites helps balance us out in a good way. Otherwise I would be broke, and he never would have had the courage to pursue his dreams.😉 (P.S. he's still getting there.)

6) Let him take out the trash, and you put the trash bag in. Otherwise, you will always be irritated that he forgot.😁

7) Speak his love language. He loves acts of service. So do it. And let him know what you love in return and he will do it too. Stop hinting and just be blunt with how you love to be loved. This isn't Hollywood, this is real life and a thriving relationship takes honest communication.

8) Pray together. It's amazing the intimacy and peace that is brought when you open up spiritual intimacy in your marriage.

What about you? What do you do to keep your marriage alive and thriving?

Originally posted on Facebook by Rachel Swanson. Used with permission.

Irrevocable Trust

“When I am afraid, I put my trust in You.”

Psalm 56:3

My father stood across the living room in his purple, cotton shirt. The ceiling of the Quonset hut curved behind his wavy, black hair. His bleary eyes stared at my mother who was dark with anger. Sitting upright on the Naugahyde couch, she cradled my sister and me on either side of her. I could feel her thin build stiffen next to me as she narrowed her eyes. There was vomit on the green, shag carpet from a guest who had passed out – the catalyst of the argument. Earlier that evening, the house was full of laughter as colorful people drank and talked in our living room. Cigarette smoke swirled overhead while ice clinked in glasses and the reel-to-reel boomed songs by Sinatra and Martin. I was young. Four or five. Alcoholism was not in my vocabulary.

“We’re leaving!” my mother announced as she ushered us into the bedroom.

My sister was older by two-and-a-half years. Her taller frame stood next to mine on the bed as my mother briskly tied our puffy kimono-like robes around our thin, tan frames. My mother’s short, black hair did not move. Everything about her was efficient, clean, crisp. She was an R.N. and worked in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) on base.

“You’re not leaving! I won’t let you!” my father said as he entered our bedroom. The gun was obvious, but my mother didn’t flinch.

I loved my father. When he was sober and wearing his Air Force blues he seemed safe. But, I couldn’t trust him. He was unpredictable. Scary. In my heart that night I vowed that I would never trust a man.

“Go ahead. Shoot us!” my mother blurted as she scooped us up and walked briskly outside before plopping us in the car. We drove away to the sound of locusts screaming in the trees.

For many years this event, and others like it, colored my relationships, even my relationship with God. To cope with the instability I withdrew, surviving through a world of fantasy. Fear defined my inner life. Fortunately, many years later, God revealed the vow I made as a little girl, “I will never trust a man.” This vow was like a seed that germinated behaviors like self-protection and distrust, enabling me to shut myself – my real self – off from the world. But, God rescued me at the age of twenty-eight and brought me into a love relationship with Him that forced me to question my normal. Intimate relationships were terrifying, painful and not worth the effort. Eventually, through prayer and counseling, God revealed several deep-rooted lies that had been hiding in my heart for years. The lies, like weeds, choked out the roses of security, love, patience and trust that God longed for me to experience. He spoke these tender words to me from Isaiah 43:1-3…

“But now, this is what the Lord says—he who created you, Jacob, he who formed you, Israel: ‘Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have summoned you by name; you are mine. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and when you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned; the flames will not set you ablaze. For I am the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior.’”  

An unstable childhood is a reality for many of us. Like me, you may have struggled with reconciling the truth of your past with God’s character. When I was a young believer God’s personality was morphed together with my father’s. It was a distortion; a Holy God I couldn’t trust. A God that may not be there when I need Him most. A God who loved me but wasn’t always delighted in me. A God who would abandon me…someday, just like my father. It took many years for me to see how I was dishonoring God with these lies. Fear and anxiety took over as I tried to protect myself and failed. The pain crept in and I felt…abandoned. Forsaken. Betrayed. In a pit of self-pity God showed me my sin saying, “I am not a man that I should lie. I am not your father.”

He is not my earthly father. He is trustworthy and always patient. He will not love me one minute and dismiss the next. He will not abandon me. He is Love. I can trust Him…irrevocably. It has taken many years of walking with God to come to a place of owning these truths. I still struggle with trusting men in general and have lapses where I forget I have a Godly husband who loves me. The trust struggle also continues with God as I recognize the familiar feelings of fear and anxiety in situations where I feel helpless. However, I have learned to accept these moments as gifts of reflection. No one likes to have their faults exposed (ouch) but God gives us the gift of a holy mirror, allowing us to see the smudges of sin on our faces. Only then will we allow Him to gently wipe them clean with His blood.

“The Lord is my shepherd, I lack nothing.
He makes me lie down in green pastures,
he leads me beside quiet waters,
he refreshes my soul.
He guides me along the right paths

for his name’s sake.
Even though I walk
through the darkest valley,[a]
I will fear no evil,
for you are with me;
your rod and your staff,
they comfort me.

You prepare a table before me
in the presence of my enemies.
You anoint my head with oil;
my cup overflows.
Surely your goodness and love will follow me
all the days of my life,
and I will dwell in the house of the Lord
forever.”

Psalm 23:1-6, NIV

Originally written by Marlene McKenna for havhope.