Hope Hurts

Matthew and I were talking in the car about my aching heart and waiting to be matched in our adoption, and I said, “I don’t know if I should just mentally prepare that it will be another year, or keep hoping.  Hoping is painful.”

Since that little conversation I have felt God showing me hope in the scriptures.  So I decided to dig deeper.  I did a study on the word hope, and I focused on the Old Testament.

I am addicted to this word and the meanings of it.  For all it represents and for how I am hoping onto hope—how I am bearing hope.

Here is what I found.

Hope is mainly translated in these ways in the Old Testament:

• ·         Expectation
• ·         Refuge
• ·         Trust
• ·         Wait
• ·         Be patient
• ·         Something waited for
• ·         To writhe in pain or fear

That last one especially made my eyes grow big in wonder.  God knows.

Hope is complicated.

It is full of expectation.  The kind that feels like sparkling water inside my chest.  Hope is a refuge when I can’t figure things out.  I hide in the refuge of hope because it cradles my heart’s dreams.

Hope is trust.  Trust in a God I cannot see and the promises I cannot see fulfilled.  Hope is to wait. Oh, the agony of this wait. Yet, if there were no wait, there would be no reason to hope because it would be already here.  So hope is truly something waited for.

But hope is not without pain or fear.  Indeed, hope is to writhe in pain or fear.  It is to tremble and travail.  This wait leaves us wounded and grieved.  Shaken.  Yet in the same painful hope we tarry, stay, waiting, trusting.  Because hope is all these things.  In this pain and fear we learn patience—which comes from this experience we are in—which leads back to hope.

And despite it all, hope does NOT disappoint us because God has pour out His love in our hearts by the Holy Spirit Whom He has given us (Romans 5:1-5). 

And one day, this hope of writing pain and fear will be hope that dances.

The depth of the word HOPE is assuring.  All these feelings I feel with hope are real and validated here.  Hope is complicated.  And hope does hurt

But I hold on. 

Because hope does not disappoint. 

May you too, hold on to hope even though there is pain in this waiting and expectation.  Do not give up.  Trust and wait in the refuge of God and know that your patience is not in vain.  God is pouring His love into your heart through the Holy Spirit during waiting and hoping…and remember God has said that hope does not disappoint.  Hold on to hope.  Hold on to God.  

Miracles Don't Always Look the Same

 

For a while now I have been reading through the Gospels.  I go slowly, one section at a time.  So I am only in Mark (and I get distracted by other studies, so I don't always read the Gospels everyday). It was reading in Mark, however that I suddenly became aware of how different miracles can look.

Here are some examples:

• Jesus took Simon's mother-in-law's hand and the fever left her.
• A man with leprosy comes to Jesus and says, "If you are willing, you can make me clean."  Jesus touches the man, says, "I am willing. Be clean!" And immediately the leprosy is gone.
• Paralytic man is lowered through the room to Jesus.  Jesus says He forgives the man's sins.  Then says to take up his bed and walk, and the man gets up and walks out praising God.
• A demon-possessed man runs at Jesus and Jesus says to "Come out of this man, you evil spirit."  But then the spirit talks back to Jesus and Jesus has a conversation with this evil spirit and then casts the demons out into pigs.
• A woman touches Jesus' garments and is immediately healed.
• Jarius comes to Jesus to heal his daughter, but on the way there the daughter dies, yet Jesus keeps going and raises her up from the dead.
• A Syrophoenician woman begs Jesus to heal her daughter of an evil spirit.  He seems to ignore and push her away, but as she persists, He praises her faith and heals her daughter without even being near the little girl.
• A deaf and mute man is brought to Jesus and Jesus puts his fingers into the man's ears, spits and touches the man's tongue, looks up to heaven and with a deep sign said to him, "Be opened!" The man is healed.
• Blind Bartimaeus refuses to be silenced and calls out continuously for Jesus.  When Jesus asks, "What do you want me to do for you?" Bartimaeus says, "Rabbi, I want to see."  "Go," Jesus says, "your faith has healed you."  And immediately Bartimaeus can see.

What is it about Jesus or the people that makes each miracle so different?

And what makes some miracles immediate and others have a process, a pleading, a waiting, a disappointment...before the miracle.

I've been praying for a miracle for our daughter to come home to us soon.  I still pray that daily.  And I wonder, if like Jarius, Jesus is coming with a miracle unlike I ever imagined, even though it seems like hope is gone.

I wonder if like the deaf and mute man Jesus is piecing the miracle together, and as I wait expectantly He smiles at the joy about to be seen and heard.

I wonder if like the Syrophoenician woman Jesus is testing my faith and persistence and is waiting just a little longer before announcing with joy, "You have great faith!"

I don't know what the miracle of our daughter will look like.  I don't know what amazing story God is writing and about the reveal.  But I do know that like Jarius I won't stop traveling with Jesus.

Like Bartimeaus I won't stop calling out to Jesus to hear my case.

Like the man with leprosy I will ask for what seems like an impossible request.

Like the woman bleeding for twelve years I won't stop trying to reach out and touch Jesus.

Like the paralytic I will have friends carry me to Jesus when I cannot do it on my own.

And like the Syrophoenician woman, I will not stop seeking God for my daughter.

What miracle are you praying for?  Search the scriptures and discover that miracles come in many different ways.  Some are immediate, some are delayed.  But all are for God's glory and our joy.
I wait expectantly in faith for God's glory to be revealed in the adoption of our daughter.