Hope

Life is hard.  Sometimes it just plain stinks.  Bad things happen to good people and it doesn't make any sense.  I'm struggling with this thought today as I mourn the death of another beloved community member.  In the past week our small community has lost two wonderful individuals to cancer.  Both of these individuals were too young to die and it is hard to see them leave behind their kids and spouses.  It just doesn't seem fair.  Why did God allow this to happen?  Why didn't He take their illness away and heal them completely?  He has the power to do so, so why didn't He?  It's just too hard to understand God's ways.

For My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways, says the Lord.  For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways and My thoughts higher than your thoughts

~Isaiah 55:8-9

It's hard to find hope in life when everything around you crumbles.  After Gabriella passed away, I tried to find hope any way I could.  I read blogs on the Internet about other moms who lost their children.  I would soak up their stories because I could relate to their hurt and their pain of living without their babies.  I could identify with each mom who came to tell me their story of infant loss, whether it was due to illness, stillbirth, or miscarriage.  I craved to hear more and more and more.  Because there was one very important thing I received when I heard and read their stories: Hope.  These women had experienced darkness, death, struggles, hurt, pain, tears, sadness, loss...and yet, they were still living.  They had learned to move on despite the heavy weight of grief in their hearts.  They were survivors. 

Hope: (noun) the feeling that what is wanted can be had or that events will turn out for the best.

Hope is what gets me out of bed each morning.  It's what helps me when I feel lost.  Having hope in the future gives me the strength to put one foot in front of the other and live.  I'm not sure what our future holds; but I can hope that it includes more children.  I can hope in God and pray that His ways are so much bigger and better than I could ever imagine.  Hope is what helps me when I grieve with the families who lost their loved ones this week.  Because although we are sad and miss them, we know they are now in heaven with God's arms around them.  And we can hope for that outcome for ourselves some day too.  Our hope is in God, in heaven, in everlasting life.  Where we will hug and kiss our loved ones that we have missed so dearly.  That is the ultimate hope.  

For in hope we have been saved, but hope that is seen is not hope; for why does one also hope for what he sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, with perseverance we wait eagerly for it. 

~Romans 8:24-25

I recently read somewhere that our loved ones in heaven speak to us through music.  This seems especially true for me lately.  There are so many songs that move me to tears and fill me with strength.  This song, "Hope in Front of Me" by Danny Gokey is one that really speaks to my heart.  I pray this song will fill you with as much hope as it does for me.  

For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the LORD, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope. ~Jeremiah 29:11