fight for hope – Page 2

Who’s In Charge Here?

♥ ♥ Day 2 ♥ ♥

God is on His Throne

In this world, infants lie five to a crib in orphanages, the room reeking of the smell of diapers needing to be changed.

Little ones fervently pray for a family to belong to, countries shut down adoption for political reasons.

In this world parents choose drug addiction over their own children.

In our honest moments the questions bubble to the surface.

Lord, where are you? Do you see what is going on?

Do you care?

When a king sits on his throne, it shows a position of authority.

When we say God is on His throne, we acknowledge that God is King of everything He created. Whether people choose to recognize it and follow Him or not, this truth remains.

He is King.

Kingship is difficult to grasp. We like to think we are in control of our lives. We like to think that we can bend circumstances to benefit us. But acknowledging God’s Kingship is vital to reaching out to the helpless, because the hope of the helpless is grounded in God’s position as King.

God’s dominion is total. He carries out all that He wills, and no one can stop what He has planned. He is sovereign over the every-day events of life as well as the big events.

God never leaves His throne. He never sleeps, He is never caught off guard. He is constantly moving forward with His plans for His people, His plans to build His Kingdom.

And the end goal of His plan? Relationship with His people. They shall see His face. This plan guides His rule as King.

I believe the heartbreaking situations grieve God’s heart, because He knows every name of every baby crowded in those cribs. He formed the heart of every child to need the connection of a family. I also believe that the heartbreaking situations will not have the final say.

There are things that happen that won’t make sense on this side of eternity. But we can cling to this truth:

God is King. He sees. He hears. He knows. He redeems.

Write the words and phrases that describe God and the way He rules as King.

Rev. 4:11 Psalm 11:4

Psalm 45:6 Psalm 93

Psalm 47:1-2 Psalm 96

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This is Day 2 of The Hope of the Helpless, a 7-day devotional I wrote as a guide for praying for orphans.

The Hope of the Helpless walks us through God’s heart for the helpless, His vision for their future, and His gracious invitation to join Him in caring for orphans.

In honor of the International Day of Prayer for Orphans, November 11, I am posting a devotional from The Hope of the Helpless each day this week.

I am looking forward to your responses, to having real conversations about orphan care, and to talking through your questions.

If you would like to receive these posts directly to your inbox, you can subscribe to my mailing list in the sidebar.

Orphan Care and Our View of God

There are 153 million orphans in the world.

That fact brings many questions to mind, but mainly “Why?”

Why are there so many orphans?

The International Day of Prayer for Orphans is a great time to ask questions, to begin finding out about the situation of orphans in America and around the world.

There was a time when I didn’t know much about orphans, or orphanages, or street children. It was one of “those problems out there” that didn’t really impact my life. That changed 10 years ago, when Matthew and Sheila Nasekos made the ~~crazy~~, ~~questionable~~, bold commitment to adopt a 13-year-old girl named Karina from an orphanage on the other side of the world.

I’m so thankful they followed God’s leading. The ripple effect of their decision has been life-changing for many others, including Karina, of course.

Then there was Vladick, the little boy who God gave me a mother’s heart for, and yet closed every door in our adoption process.

That heart-breaking journey involved wrestling with some pretty big questions about who God is, about the way He works, and about His ability to work on behalf of the helpless.

Orphan care brings us face-to-face with our view of God. How big do we believe He is? How powerful? Can He really work in desperate situations? What about when He doesn’t work in ways that we think He should?

One ripple effect of my journey is The Hope of the Hopeless, a 7-day devotional on praying for orphans that I would love to share with you this week.

The Hope of the Helpless brings us to the perfect place to start when it comes to orphan care: God’s heart for the helpless, His vision for their future, and His gracious invitation to join Him in caring for orphans.

I will post a devotional each day this week. I am looking forward to your responses, to having real conversations about orphan care, and to talking through your questions.

Even the tough ones, my friend.

Flowers From Tears

I am so excited to have Kristen Kelley as a guest today. Kristen shares her journey of fighting for hope in her book “A Letter in your Loss: Living Through the Sorrow of Miscarriage.”

The grief after a miscarriage is deep, private and, generally, not talked about. Kristen’s sincerity and empathy shine through her words. She doesn’t give short cuts for getting through the pain. Instead, she shares her own private, grief-filled thoughts. There are no “shoulds” in her book. Only a feeling that she is talking with you over a cup of coffee, giving hope that good will come, no matter how heavy the darkness feels.

Flowers from Tears

Last night, our youngest went on her first Daddy-Daughter Date. We have four girls, and it has been a toddler tradition for each of them. I painted her little nails, let her wear ChapStick, and proceeded to make her hair all fancy by pinning braids to the top of her head and weaving in flowers from the front yard. Things don’t always go smoothly around here, so after a quick battle with microscopic plant bugs, and an emergency hair-washing, we were back on track for “date night”. Once in town, her Daddy now and then texted me photos of the sweet time they were having. Charlotte’s precious little face, the orange, and yellow, and white in her hair, the sun beginning to set . . . My heart felt so bittersweet. Not only because our youngest is now officially out of diapers and in preschool, but because the flowers on this happy occasion were come-back blooms from Joshua’s memorial garden.

A year-and-a-half ago, God gave us a little life that we weren’t meant to keep for very long. At 5 months pregnancy with our 5^th child, we learned that we had suffered what is known as a “missed miscarriage”. Because we were induced into labor to deliver Joshua, the hospital sent us home with a bereavement folder . . . There was so little hope in that material; nothing for a person to truly cling to in their sorrow. The months that followed were some of the darkest I’ve ever known, but God was the Healer of my heart.

You see, I knew the One Who could mend the broken pieces – I could go to God’s Word and to prayer for comfort – but what about those who don’t know the Lord? What do they do when they’re going through the loss of a baby? And thus my heart burden for miscarriage ministry began.

I have always LOVED to write, and after our sorrowful delivery, I wrote a post on my devotional blog, just sharing our story and the goodness of God through the darkness. As a grieving mother, it was such a blessing to my heart to see God, over and over again, use our own testimony to help comfort others.

Last year, the day after Christmas, we learned that we had miscarried again. This time, we endured a hospital procedure known as a D&E. There was no memorial box given. No bereavement folder. No support group information. But there was a very real need . . .There was a NEED for Christian writing on the subject of miscarriage, and through these new days of grief, God was working on my heart to play a part in it.

II Corinthians 1:3-4 “Blessed be God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies, and the God of all comfort. Who comforteth us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort them which are in any trouble, by the comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God.”

A group known as “The Guild of Baptist Writers” helped me through the editing and publishing process, and in March of this year, “A Letter in Your Loss” was officially in print. With our personal stories, and Bible verses, and excerpts of hymns, it was designed to be a “letter” of comfort to other ladies going through a similar sorrow.

Since the book’s publication, God has been giving us divine encounters and open doors of opportunity I never could have foreseen. Sentara Rockingham Memorial Hospital allowed us to donate a year’s supply of books for their bereavement folders. We were able to donate several copies to a local child loss support group known as “The Sadie Rose Foundation”. I’ve reached out to several Facebook groups who sew “angel gowns” for baby funerals. I’ve cried with mothers who miscarried within the week. I’ve listened to the stories of mamas who said their goodbyes literally decades ago. And I have continued to find hope in my Savior, one day at a time.

You see, the sorrow doesn’t ever completely go away, but the heart does heal. The anguish and the despair dissipate, as the comfort of God enters the soul. And often, when we seek to be a blessing to others in their grief, it helps us to navigate through our own. This wasn’t a ministry that I would have ever chosen for myself. But it is one that God, in His infinite wisdom chose for me, and I am grateful for it.

In recent days, one of my favorite Bible verses has been Isaiah 61:2-3.

“ . . . to comfort all that mourn . . . to give unto them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness; that they might be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the LORD, that he might be glorified.”

Flowers can spring from tears. God can take any level of sorrow and bring forth good. He can bring beauty from ashes, and light from darkness. And He can take any life and any death, and use it for His glory.

Kristen Kelley and her husband Brandon are missionaries to Southeast Asia. As a homeschooling mother of four little girls, Kristen thoroughly enjoys both writing and teaching. She loves hats and flowers, historical dramas and musicals, buttery popcorn and the smell of pages in a printed book. Her devotionals for ladies come from a sincere desire to help others in their walk with the Lord.

Connect with Kristen on her blog Dinner’s in the Oven.

Her book, A Letter In Your Loss, is sold on Amazon. You can also hop over to my Hope Warrior’s Resources Page and clink on the link provided there.

Heritage Ukraine: A Light in Dark Places

Slavik motioned toward the couch and chairs in his living room.

“Spasiba, spasiba.”

My mind went blank. Spasiba was one of the 5 Russian words I knew, but a 13 hour flight, a race through the Paris airport to catch our connecting flight, and the experience of going through customs had me completely numb.

Our team stood in the middle of the room, smiling and nodding like a collection of bobble heads.

Thankfully, Alyona came in the room and said “Please, sit down.”

The next morning I tried to tell Slavik’s mother Good Morning, but my version of “Dobroe utro” was, no doubt, too Southern. She just waved her hand impatiently and pointed toward the kitchen as if to say “Don’t bother, just go get breakfast.”

Traveling to another culture is so humbling.

I needed help turning on the shower. Which knob is for hot water and which one is cold? I needed help plugging in my hair dryer.

And I certainly couldn’t read the gas pumps.

One afternoon our team sat on the floor of the Slavik and Alyona’s home office wrapping Christmas presents to take to the orphanage that we would be visiting the next day. Suddenly 3 clowns walked down the stairs.

Thankfully, they weren’t the creepy kind of clowns. They were colorful, cheerful, and in full costume from head to toe.

They nodded at us, and we nodded back, bobble head style, as they walked out the door.

I never knew what to expect from moment to moment.

Ukraine had delicious pizza, huge grocery stores, beautiful landscapes, cold weather unlike anything I’d ever experienced. And beautiful, hospitable people who welcomed us into their homes.

There was also brokenness and pain. I spent time with the children in the orphanages and heard their stories. I saw fear beneath their tough exterior. These children were placed there by the decisions of others and are helpless to change their situation. Being helpless can take us to some pretty dark places. And here, in the middle of darkness, Heritage Ukraine is a ray of light. A sliver of hope that things don’t have to stay dark.

The ministry of Heritage Ukraine involves children in one of these settings:

Orphanage ministry: Teams visit the children in the orphanage each month doing a variety of different activities including sharing Bible stories, playing games, doing crafts, teaching life skills lessons, and establishing mentor relationships.

JAM (Jesus and Me) Day Center: ministers to children from troubled homes and their families. Children in troubled homes often end up in orphanages. This center is a way to help prevent that from happening.

Joy Center: ministers to children with special needs and their families.

Camp Lela: Summer camps run from the beginning of June through the end of August. Each week of camp focuses on one specific set of children. The first week this year was for children from the Jesus and Me Day Center, the second was for children with hearing disabilities, the third for children from the Eastern Ukraine Conflict Zone. There are camps for the children from specific orphanages with special needs, camps for children from other orphanages and a family camp in the mix.

Three things I love about Heritage Ukraine: :

Slavik and Alonya are a great team. The Lord has given them the ability to dream big and communicate their vision to others in a way that generates momentum.
They give practical ways for others to become involved in stretching out a hand of relief to those in need. It’s easy to see a need, it’ s hard to know where to step in to help.
Everything they do is consistent with their purpose statement: Heritage Ukraine exists to shine God’s light in dark places for orphans, troubled children, children with special needs, and refugees.

Ways You Can Get involved:

Find out more about Slavik, Alonya and Heritage Ukraine on their website, http://www.heritageua.org/

Subscribe to their monthly newsletters to get an idea of what is going on that month and what they need.

Check out their Heritage Ukraine YouTube Channel to feel the energy, especially in the camp videos!

Like their Facebook page to get updates on Facebook.

Give financially.

Travel to Ukraine and volunteer with Heritage Ukraine on a short-term mission trip.

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This post is part of the Fighting for Those Who Can’t page at erinulerich.com

Fighting For Those Who Can’t is a resource to share the stories of people who are reaching out to the brokenhearted, the forgotten, and the helpless and to give practical ways others can reach out right where they are.

Trusting God in the Moment at Hand

Rain pelted the windshield as I drove away from the doctor’s office. The raindrops sounded forlorn as they hit the car, echoing the state of my heart. The joy of a positive pregnancy test had ended in the grief of another miscarriage.

Grief, fear, and anger vied for first place inside of me. Grief at the loss, fear that we would never have children, anger at the unfairness of it all. And sadness, overwhelming sadness covered all of me in a hopeless fog.

Our tenth wedding anniversary was approaching. A decade of waiting, of hosting baby showers for other people. Ten years of all the questions people feel the freedom to ask.

I had a question of my own. What if it never happens?

Alone in the car I heard Him whisper. Trust Me.

What if we celebrate our 20^th anniversary childless?

Trust Me.

What if you don’t give what I want so badly?

Trust Me.

The majority of the ten years had been filled with similar versions of this conversation. Me, anxious and ranting. God, patiently reminding me to trust Him through His Word and, in a few quiet moments, by whispering hope into my heart.

In one of those moments I sat in an empty chapel between seminary classes, feeling utterly helpless. As I prayed, I began to feel a calm assurance that I would have a baby. I can’t really explain it, but I felt like God had given me a promise.

That calm assurance eroded as years passed and negative pregnancy tests piled up. But God kept saying Trust me.

After the doctor’s visit I stood in the baby section of Walmart, holding a mint-green onesie, wondering if I’d ever hold a baby of my own.

Buy it.

“What for? I don’t need it.” (My tone might have been a little bitter.)

Buy it and remember My promises.

I bought it, wrote His promises on sticky notes and put them on the onesie. They were the same verses I’d written in my journals many times over the years.

Each time I walked by, this outfit reminded me to trust. I read the verses after negative pregnancy tests. I read them on days when the ache to be a mama overwhelmed me.

I still ranted at times, but I also slowly began to trust. I began to trust that He would grant me the desire to be a mother in His time, and I began to accept that it would be in whatever capacity He chose.

As I trusted, the Lord began showing me that I was holding this desire of having a baby too tightly and ignoring the blessings that already filled my life. I was convinced that having a baby would make my life complete. But as I loosened my grasp, I realized that my life was made complete by trusting what God had for me in the moment at hand, and all the moments after.

The Lord did keep His promises, over and above. He has fulfilled my desire to be a mother through my three children and through being involved with French Camp Academy, a Christian boarding school for children from difficult home situations.

And that green onesie? It’s gotten plenty of wear over the years. Holding my babies as they wore that outfit gave me a very tangible reminder of God’s faithfulness, His provision, and His trustworthiness.

I still need that reminder, because on the other side of the promise of being a mom, my focus still has to be on trusting Him in the moment at hand, and all the moments after.

Out of Darkness, Into the Light

The ever-growing list of men in the entertainment world being called out for sexual misconduct is staggering.

I know sexual misconduct is not new. As long as there have been men and women with dark hearts, there has been a misuse of sexuality. But the list coming out of Hollywood grows longer and longer, and as we sit on our couches watching the stories unfold, we might be tempted to say
How did they get there?

But the truth is, it’s not just in Hollywood.

Too many of us have the misuse of sexuality stamped on our own stories.

And yet the problem runs deeper than neglecting to treat others with respect. It runs deeper than not taking no for an answer. It runs deeper than giving other people the power to determine our worth.

The problem runs to the core of each one of us.

How did we get here?

We are here because we are a people who’ve forgotten.

We’ve forgotten that things done in private always become public. Thoughts lead to clicks, which leads to actions. Which leads to treating others as objects instead of real people.

Excessive shopping leads to maxed out credit cards.
Excessive gambling leads to financial ruin.

Excessive eating in private will show up in weight gain, insecurity, and the way we view ourselves.

There’s always a progression.

Matt Lauer didn’t just wake up one day as the host of the Today show making millions of dollars. His career grew step by step over years – small decisions led the way to big decisions. Just as his career grew step by step, his behavior did as well. A look here, a comment there, letting things go too far, whispers in the dark, led to his current state.

And Glee actor Mark Sally didn’t just wake up one morning with 30,000 pictures of child porn on his computer. It was a progression, one decision at a time, that led to darkness.

A drip that became a stream that grew into a dangerous, raging river.

These men are not alone in walking in darkness. We all have hidden thoughts and actions that we’d never want brought into the light of day. And we stay in the dark, thinking that no one will ever know, because we’ve become a people who’ve forgotten.

We’ve forgotten that what we consume, consumes us.

If we fill our minds and lives with truth and light, that will consume us. And if we fill our lives with darkness, it will rot our souls.

We’ve forgotten that we weren’t made to live life in the dark.

We were created by the God of hope to live lives of hope. We were made for hope, yet we live in a very broken world, a world that brings pain into our lives.

Our steps into darkness often begin because we are trying to cope with this pain. What starts as a way to numb the pain, grows into a monster, trapping us and adding to our pain.

We feel pain on many different levels, and we work hard to keep from feeling it. We numb it by staying busy, binge-watching Netflix, eating, not eating, drinking alcohol, shopping, work, working out… really, the list is endless. We want to avoid pain so much that we even take good things and twist them to keep numb instead of stopping and looking our pain in the eye.

These ways of dealing with pain sabotage our fight for hope. They sap our strength, distort our view of reality, create a gap between who we are and who we want to be. These ways of dealing with pain keeps us low, vulnerable, and weak.

I have to admit, it’s a brilliant warfare strategy, perfected by the enemy of our souls. He wants to keep us from hope, because that’s where our strength lies. If we are too busy sabotaging our own fight for hope, then we’ll never reach out and encourage others to fight for hope. If he can convince us that we are alone in our struggle, that we are too far gone to change, that we are beyond hope, then he has won.

And the main problem with all this numbing that we do is this truth: We were not made to live life numb. We were made to push through the fear, look our pain square in the eye, and live life in full.

How can we change the tide? How can we become a people who remember who we are and what we were made for?

Truth helps us remember. I am convinced that a steady stream of truth running into our lives, our hearts, and our minds, each and every day, is the only way to combat the lies of our enemy. He has come to kill, steal, and destroy. He is the father of lies, and he whispers those lies to us as long as we will listen.

We begin with the truth about who we are, told by the God who made us and who loves us. As we begin listening to what God says about us, we will begin believing that we were made to walk in the light. And we will gain strength and courage and bring things hidden in the darkness into the light.

When things are kept in the dark, they are made stronger by shame and silence. But when things are brought into the light, healing can happen.

Being known helps us remember.

We are known – to our very core – by Jesus. Even before we know Him, He knows us. And He promises that we will not face our pain alone.

On the podcast This Good Word With Steve Wiens, Seth Haines says this on the episode called Inner Sobriety.

“The foundational question is, ‘Can I sit in my pain and feel it without needing to eat, drink, do whatever, look at porn? Can I sit in that pain, can I invite Christ into that pain and then can I cultivate a prayerful imagination of what it looks like for Christ to walk in that pain with me?’”

Can you imagine Jesus speaking into your pain? What do you think He would say?

We are a people trapped in the darkness, in need of a rescue.

And through Jesus, God has rescued us.

He rescued us from the power of darkness because He made us to live in the light. No matter who we are, no matter what we struggle with, we were made to live in the light.

Jesus stands with us when we face our pain. He also provides what we need to face our pain. We feel His love, hear His truth, through the actions of other people- broken, struggling people who are fighting for hope.

When we are hurting we tend to close off from others. Once again, that is exactly what our enemy wants. If we shut ourselves off he can joyfully whisper more lies. You are alone, he will say. No one understands, no one cares.

But when Jesus sends people who are fighting for hope into our lives, something happens. Something that is beautiful and terrifying simultaneously.

We are known.

These people see us, really know us, still love us, and chase away the lies with His beautiful truth. We are known. We are loved. We are never, ever alone.

Jesus stepped from the perfection of heaven into the broken chaos of this world to walk with us – every single messy step – out of darkness, into the light.

Stretching Out a Hand of Relief

Back in the late 70’s and early 80’s I spent part of my summers participating in a Multiple Sclerosis ReadaThon. I remember a few details about this fundraiser. I remember that the mascot was a dog dressed in a Sherlock Holmes style hat holding a magnifying glass. I remember folding and re-folding the pledge sheet with my sweaty hands as I went door to door collecting pledges.

I HATED going door to door, BUT I loved to read, and I loved the idea of helping others, so this fundraiser was a perfect fit for me.

One summer I held the information packet in my hand and a thought came, What difference could one little girl in Mississippi really make?

I never participated in the fundraiser again.

Research didn’t come to a stand still from the lack of my contribution. But something terrible did happen.

A lie, whispered as a thought, lodged into my heart and became a truth I believed.

If I can’t make a see-able, sizeable difference, what’s the use in trying?

Fast forward 25 years later when my friends, Matthew and Sheila Nasekos, responded to God’s prompting to adopt a 13 year-old girl from Ukraine.

I wanted to help, but I knew I couldn’t give them enough money to make a difference. They needed thousands of dollars and I didn’t have that. I felt paralyzed by that old lie that I didn’t even know I still believed. Although I didn’t say it out loud, it was there, lurking under the surface.

If I can’t solve the problem, why even try?

Thankfully, God didn’t let me stay in that frozen state.

I began studying James 1:27 and found an answer to that old lie.

Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world.

The Greek word for visit gives the idea of stretching out a hand to help, or to give relief.

In the chasm between problem and solution, we are called to stretch out a hand to those trapped in the gap.

We often feel the pressure to solve the problem, when that isn’t even our job.

We aren’t SUPPOSED to have a solution. Orphans and widows exist because of a broken world that contains death, abandonment, and abuse. The state of the broken world is God’s job to fix.

What God asks us to do is to stretch out a hand of relief to these forgotten groups of people who are helpless to change their situation.

There is blessing in being part of the journey, there is meaning in bringing relief to someone’s life.

Stretching out a hand of relief could mean giving to an organization that builds wells so that people can have clean water. It could mean sending birthday cards to children in orphanages so they don’t feel alone on their special day. It could mean using your profession as a doctor or dentist to offer free services to those in need. It could mean opening your home through a hosting program or opening your heart to adopt a child into your family.

And as we reach out toward the hurting and forgotten, the ones who can’t fight for hope on their own, we must keep two things in mind. Stretching out a hand of relief doesn’t erase wounds, doesn’t solve political issues, doesn’t change hearts. And more often than not, the see-able size-able difference will not be seen on this side of eternity.

But in eternity I believe we will see. And the spotlight won’t be on one person bringing a solution to the problem. It will be a beautiful patchwork showing the way God uses many people to touch each person’s life.

It will show how He speaks to the helpless and forgotten through those who are willing to offer a hand. It will show how He provides food, water, and encouragement through the giving and going of others.

On this earth He works through us, seemingly in the background. In eternity we will see that He really has always been in the forefront and we have been participating in His plans to bring healing to this broken world.

Water for Our Heart

I’ve been reading Psalm 65 this week, and I can’t get this phrase in verse 9 out of my head.

“You visit the earth and water it, you greatly enrich it; the river of God is full of water…”

The river of God is full of water. If I read this sentence to my kids they would roll their eyes and say “Mom, of course it’s full of water. It’s a RIVER.”

I know that.

It’s the word full that caught my eye. The river of God is full of water. It is not a trickling stream, evaporated by the hot sun before it reaches its destination. It is abundant, plentiful.

In an agricultural society, water is vital to survival. The land must have the water it needs in order for the seed to produce fruit. God provides that water.

In the care of our heart God also provides what we need. Our hearts are often dry and dusty, hardened by the lies we believe.

The enemy of our soul would love for us to believe that we are out of reach of God’s stream of grace. He would love for us to believe that God’s provision does not apply to us, that our sins are stacked too high, keeping His mercy from washing over us.

These lies dry us up.

The refreshing, life-giving truth?

God is a good God who hears our prayers and provides our every need. He is a God who is strong enough to calm the waves of chaos in our lives. He is a loving God who invites us into relationship and satisfies the deepest longings of our heart.

God is the hope of all the earth, because He created all the earth for hope.

How is your heart today?

When my heart is parched, I’ve found it’s because I’m avoiding the things that God provides to strengthen me.

I sabotage myself and say that God isn’t providing.

I start believing lies and falter in my fight for hope.

If this is where you are today, may I tell you that you are not alone? May I encourage you with these words?

The river of God is full of water and that water is available to you.

When Hope Seems Foolish

I wrote this post back in 2015, and although the news reports in 2018 are a little different, the need for hope remains the same.

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Hopelessness is sneaky. It erodes the hope I’m standing on, as I’m standing on it.

I feel hopeless when I watch the news. Seeing the waves of people fleeing the war in Syria, running from the unimaginable, toward the unknown. The anxious faces of children riding on the backs and shoulders of their fathers, uncles, and brothers. The fear on the adults’ faces as they are stopped by high fences and border patrols.

And the question rings out, mockingly, “Where is hope now?”

The situation is so dire that it seems foolish to even bring up the word hope. It makes more sense to let hope wash away into the darkness and allow hopelessness to take its place.

Or so the darkness would like us to think.

The darkness does not fight fair. It hits us when we are tired, weak and worn. It whispers to our hearts, “You are just one person. How could you make a difference in this situation? There is no hope.”

But the darkness is wrong.

God has been fighting against the darkness for quite a while. He knows the darkness is convincing, so He sends out sparks of hope in the darkest of times.

He gave the first spark of hope in the Garden of Eden, when Adam and Eve realized the cost of that one bite of fruit, when darkness gave a victorious cry believing it had ruined God’s beautiful plan for mankind. Even then in that moment, tucked in among the tragic, world-changing consequences, God gave Adam and Eve a spark of hope, the hint of a Savior who would defeat the darkness, in Genesis 3:15.

Jeremiah 32, describes another dark time for God’s people. The Babylonian army was outside the walls of Jerusalem, marching closer every day. Defeat was certain. And God told Jeremiah to buy a piece of land.

It sounds foolish. But in a city about to be overtaken, for a people about to be carried off and scattered, in the darkest of times, God had a message of hope. He told Jeremiah to buy land and to put the deed into a clay jar because “houses and fields and vineyards shall again be bought in this land.”

So Jeremiah bought land.

This message did not erase the fall of the city, nor did it take away the violence of the invasion. but it provided a spark of hope. It sent a message that this was not the end, this was not the last chapter, and God would bring good again.

And now, all these years later, God still sends sparks of hope in the darkest of times. For the men, women and children looking for safety from a war-torn country, this is not the end. The story of their lives is still being written. This is a very dark chapter, to be sure.

The darkness would convince us that God does not see, or hear, or care because we can’t see Him working. We can stand firm, confident that He is. Or, in those moments when we do doubt, we can take this doubt to Him instead of blindly believing the lies of the darkness. We can cry out, even in the midst of darkness, for God to work in a mighty way.

This holds true for your life as well. As you walk through your days, do you feel doubt rise up and whisper “There is no hope?”

The darkness wants you to believe that you are without hope and powerless to change the situation. It wants to convince you that you are alone.

But the truth shines in the darkness: God is the God of hope.

And because of that, even in the darkness we can plant our feet firmly and cling to truth. This is not the end. This is not the last chapter. God will work in this.

The darkness is as light to Him. He sees. He hears. He knows. And He will lead His people through sparks of hope.

When you find yourself surrounded by darkness, please remember

This is not the end. This is not the last chapter.

And, my friend, you are not alone. Keep fighting for hope.

Overwhelm, Abundance, and Walmart

I give myself pep talks – when I’m about to lose it on my kiddos, when I’m tackling a mountain of laundry, when I walk into Walmart two days before Christmas. Basically when I’m feeling overwhelmed.

The Walmart pep talk sounds like this: Ok, Erin. You can do this. Take deep breaths, stick to your list, and, please, let’s not end up on the evening news.

I have this fear that one day I am going to lose all composure and ability to filter my words and actions in Walmart.

Walmart is the perfect storm for overwhelm. There’s just so much going on. First, there’s the mental stress of remembering what I need to get. There’s a list on my phone, but there’s also a couple of other lists in my head that I’m working off of. Then there are the shopping carts. Have you ever gotten rammed into from the back with one of those things? When my kids were little and just learning to “drive” they would accidentally hit the back of my feet. I’m still not sure what words came out of my mouth, but I’m pretty sure this will come up with their future therapists.

And then, there are people, too many people, getting in the way of my ultimate objective: Get in, get out, go home.

When I focus on my objective, then I see people as exactly that – in the way.

During the craziness of the week before Christmas, I made out an extensive to-do list, because it was a week of all-things-extra. I was a bit overwhelmed when I looked at this list on Monday morning and saw the week looming before me.

So I gave myself a pep talk. Ok Erin, you can do this. Just get these done one at a time and you’ll make it through the day. Get in, get out, go home. This pep talk would been fine if my list didn’t involve people. But it was filled with people. And that ‘s not the way I want to treat the people in my life.

I stopped and thought over the truths from the December series. Jesus is with us, so we are not alone. He gives us strength, so we are not powerless. He rescued us to live in freedom. And then this truth. He upholds the universe by the word of His power.

My pep talk changed dramatically.

I am loved by the God who upholds the universe by the word of His power. If this is true, surely I can ask Him for the energy to enjoy all this extra. Surely He can help me to be fully present in this crazy schedule.

My get in, get out, go home thinking comes from the belief that I don’t have enough in me to handle life. And that belief keeps me operating out of emotional poverty.

I want to operate out of the mindset of abundance. I want the truth that I am not alone to guide my actions. I want the truth that I am loved by God to form my words. I want the assurance that Jesus rescued me to be the fuel that gives my life lasting hope.

God can work through me. He is not limited. The compassion, love, patience, and forgiveness that He showers on me CAN flow through me into the lives of those around me. That’s life in abundance.

That abundance gives me the freedom to walk through Walmart, seeing people as real people instead of seeing them as in the way of my objective. When His compassion, love, patience, and forgiveness is what they see, there are opportunities for words of encouragement, for words of hope.

And I can still avoid ending up on the evening news.