hope: {confident expectation}

The year was 2003.  Tragedy fell harsh around me.

Just one week before, we had stared blankly as the doctor revealed that our baby had died.  We had prayed over the nursery, held each other, and cried out before our Lord. But there was no heartbeat.

I vividly remember laying in that hospital bed awaiting my D&C, listening to weeping women all around me.  Through the closed curtains I could easily imagine their faces.  I could personally feel their pain.  Yet, there was something inside of me that held it all together.  A promise.  A promise that my God had better plans than I could imagine.

Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us.  Ephesians 3:20

I was confident that even in this valley, God was still in control.  My confidence didn’t keep the tears from falling, but it kept despair from settling in my soul.

I refused to give in to despair.  Instead I awaited with confident expectation.  Hope.

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Hope is a word that is easily thrown around and not so easily defined.  It’s a word that many want to claim in their lives, but few truly understand.  We picture it as the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow or a field of lovely flowers.  But hope is none of those things.

Hope is confident expectation without consideration for current or future circumstances.

Hope is in God.

Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that you will abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.  Romans 15:13

Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.  1 Peter 1:3

For you, O Lord, are my hope, my trust, O LORD, from my youth. Psalm 71:5

Hope is for the hopeless.

LORD, you know the hopes of the helpless. Surely you will hear their cries and comfort them. Psalm 10:17

Why, my soul, are you downcast? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God. Psalm 42:5

HOPE is found through prayer and reading God’s word.

Rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer. Romans 12:12

For whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction, that through endurance and through the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope. Romans 15:4

Hope is what we need in the VALLEY.

Yet this I call to mind and therefore I have hope:  Because of the LORD’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail.  They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.  I say to myself, “The LORD is my portion; therefore I will wait for him.”The LORD is good to those whose hope is in him, to the one who seeks him; it is good to wait quietly for the salvation of the LORD. Lamentations 3:21-26

Your turn~

Can you share a time when you felt God’s hope surround you?  Do you have a favorite verse for hope?

Kim Sorgius

Kim is just a girl, crazy in love with Jesus. She's a single mother of 4, a passionate homeschooler and life-long student. After teaching 8 years in public school, she traded her M.A. in Early Childhood for sippy cups and homeschool co-ops. Kim is the owner and editor of The Homeschool Village and Not Consumed where she encourages others to rest victoriously in the hands of God, rather than allowing life's difficult circumstances to consume.

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Last updated by Kim Sorgius at February 17, 2012.

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