Hope that never puts to shame

The past few months have been a difficult season of life for me. No really big problems, just lots of little trials and hurdles. Some have challenged me to take a long, hard look at where my real hope lies. Several trials have involved my children, which pierces my heart with pain. I have struggled to keep my hands firmly grasping both sorrow (reality) and hope (promise).

Both children had the stomach bug this weekend, which forced my schedule to slow down to a halt, and gave me time to reflect and wrestle with my soul. I stayed up late in Harry's room the other night, preparing for a talk that I am giving at our women's retreat this weekend. Three of us are dividing up the book, A Praying Life, by Paul Miller, and the section that I am speaking on is about finding God in the desert. This was exactly what my heart needed to mull over at 1:00 a.m. with a throwing up kid next to me.

This quote from the book has stuck with me over the last several months: "...Gospel stories always have suffering in them. American Christianity has an allergic reaction to this part of the gospel. We'd love to hear about God's love for us, but suffering doesn't mesh with our right to the 'pursuit of happiness'. So we pray to escape a gospel story, when that is the best gift the Father can give us." I think this is what I have been doing for most of my adult life. I have been wanting to be like Jesus, but without the pain and suffering part. I have wanted a "gospel story" without the cross that is the center of it. I am beginning to realize that the two are inseparable. Jesus isn't a Savior without His cross.

So I am praying to find the Father within the sufferings. The trials are a means for me to be purified, to have my heart become completely His. So many things have been crowding Him out of my thoughts, and they need to be removed and put in their rightful place. This verse is constantly being brought to my mind: "...we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope DOES NOT PUT US TO SHAME, because God's love has been POURED INTO our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us." Romans 5: 3-5

I want to have a heart that belongs, completely and wholly, to the One who has poured His love into my heart. He has borne the ultimate suffering, the curse of the tree, so that I would never have to. I can bear these trials, even rejoice in them, to have Him become my only Hope.

Hannah as "Princess Leia" and Harry as "Spiderman"