Hope

My word for the year is HOPE. I prayed about a word at the beginning of 2016 and asked God to bring me a word that would describe what he is going to do this year and the word HOPE kept popping up every where. I believe that he is going to renew my hope in Him after what happened last year, create a new hope for my own classroom, hope for new relationships.

I have already seen Him build upon my hope for friendships as he brought me to a wonderful church with wonderful people in my age group.  He is slowly renewing my hope in him and not in ways  I would expect. I honestly thought he would renew my hope in Him through rest and extra time alone with him. I never thought trials would be one of the ways he would renew my hope in Him. But he is using a specific trial to not only renew my hope but also to help me identify where my hope is found.

My mentor shared this verse with me yesterday from James 1:2-4 "Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. And let perseverance have its full effect that you may be mature and complete, lacking nothing."

She pointed out that in order to be mature in Christ, I need to be dependent upon for everything even i in the trials.

Holley Gerth, author and life coach, talks about on her blog about trials being like rain. She tells a story about she got caught running in the rain one time and her husband rescued her. She explains that we serve a God who rescues us in the rain. We might have to wait it out in the rain and get soaked because his timing is different than ours but He always comes.

This is my favorite part from her blog "These days I am not praying to always stay dry. I am not asking for absolute safety. Or a perfectly comfortable existence. No, I am asking for the courage to keep running in the rain when that’s what it takes.

Because Someone is coming for me. He is already on His way. I may not always understand His plans but I know His heart. And I want my life to echo the words of a wise little boy who lives in a place where rain is not seen as a curse but instead a mysterious, sacred gift: “God is good.”    From http://holleygerth.com/

All this to say, I might not like this rain (trial) but he is teaching me to come running back to Him where my hope is always found and He will wait for he is always there for me. I know this rain will pass and my hope will be in my unchanging Father.