hope

Having Hope in a New Season

It’s September. The pumpkin spice lattes are back, and the Halloween candy is out, which is how I know it’s autumn (Orlando weather doesn’t really give me any clues). Can I just point out that if you’re buying Halloween candy now, you’re either a great planner AND highly disciplined, or let’s face it-it’s never going to last until October 31. Just sayin’.

It’s exciting to see the fall décor, the warm colors of sweaters and pants hanging on the racks, the everything scented cinnamon. Bring on the new season.

New seasons bring exciting new possibilities, but they also bring the unknown. They bring “I’m not sure how to do this” and “what will happen?” and most of, “will this be good?”

It’s been several years now since we moved back to the U.S. from 13 years overseas. We returned to many familiars, but also so many unknowns. Overseas, we were deeply known, deeply rooted, deeply seen. Here, we had yet to see how God would provide in similar ways.

Now, I scroll through my text messages and I see name after name of people I did not know then. I have my favorite places, my favorite things (the library delivers, friends. To. My. House).

I, who dread meet and greets, linger after church because there are so many people I love and want to see. Our roots are not as deep as they were in the last season, but they are sinking. We are claiming ground here.

And He saw it all before it ever came to be.

A year or so into our time in Singapore years ago, God gave me this same kind of awareness. I imagined having this kind of conversation with Him when I was hesitant to leave our home and move there,

“Oh but Gina, you’re going to meet Wendy, and Krisi, and Fiona, and so many others. You’re going to have great memories with your kids at the wobbly train park and the zoo and the children’s library. They’re going to talk for years about the Nutella waffles you get at the market. It’s going to be so good!”

Friend, maybe you are in a new season that looms much larger than new latte flavors and décor.

Maybe it’s a new location, a new stage of life, a new role. You can’t see much through the fog right now. You’re wondering if it’s going to be good, if you’ll be known, if you’ll find your place. Remember this:

Every season that is unknown to you is known to God.

God’s got good in store for you. He has people for you. He has prepared moments of laughter and joy. There will be valleys and mountains of growth. Just like I told my kids when we first moved here, “You might just meet your new best friend.”

You might be entering a season of amazing blessing, or it might be your greatest place of transformation. Either way, He knows it. He’s got you.

Each year back, we celebrate another season of life here. We pile the Ebenezer stones and claim the goodness of God in this season He’s given us. We look back and see all that He knew He was going to give us here.

It’s a new season. There’s good to come. He goes ahead, preparing it for you.

“I know what I’m doing. I have it all planned out—plans to take care of you, not abandon you, plans to give you the future you hope for.” –Jeremiah 29:11 The Message

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What Will We Tell Our Children About These Tragedies?

What Will We Tell Our Children About These Tragedies?

Our kids return tonight from a month long mission trip during which they have been out of contact and presumably unaware of all that is happening in the world. I wish the only thing I had to explain to them is why people are looking at their phones even more than usual, to the point of running into other people and walls and such.

Instead, after sending them off just after the Pulse shooting in our own city, we have to tell them that while they were gone, the nation was in uproar over the sudden deaths of two black men at the hands of police. We have to explain to them that during the protests that followed, five police officers were shot and killed. There were bombings in Baghdad and Turkey that killed over 300 people combined. And last night in France, more than 80 people were killed during a celebration. Lord, have mercy.

How do we deal out this information? How do we help them understand why? Part of me wants to shelter my kids from knowing the horror that this summer has brought, but they must know. They must know because we want them to be people of compassion, people of the world, people who enter in to the sorrow of others and weep with those who weep.

Will it make them fearful? I don’t know. Maybe. But I know the path to peace is not to ignore reality or choose to only see the parts of it that make us comfortable, that we agree with, that directly affects us. We cannot hide from the truth, but we can choose how we respond to it. 

We can choose, as a family, to be people who cling to God. We can’t explain to our kids why all this is happening, but we can remind them that there is always hope because of who He is. We can cry out to Him for mercy, healing, strength, wisdom, compassion, guidance, help. We can be people who remember that this is not our home, He is.

So we will tell our children about the atrocities our world has seen this past month. We will tell them, not to make them fearful, but to make them aware that this is the world we live in. We will tell them that this is when we look up, not for answers, but for help, to navigate this world as people who love it well but hold it loosely.

We will cry together for the world. We will pray together for it. We will live, not in fear, but in hope, in trust, in faith. We will face the truth and respond by looking to the One who alone can save.

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Why Christmas Reminds Me to Hope in God

Why Christmas Reminds Me to Hope in God

I hate waiting. That’s why I have Amazon Prime.

‘Tis the season of waiting. We wait in lines, for packages to arrive, for family, friends, parties, planes.

In the Bible, the word wait is often translated hope. They are intertwined. We must wait for the objects of our hope.

Hope feels deeper. We don’t just hope for that gift we want for Christmas. We hope for marriage, children, jobs, for needs satisfied.

Wrapped up in our hope is expectation. We have ideas of how we want our hopes realized. And when we are asking God to step into our hope and meet it, we put those expectations on Him.

What does it look like to hope in God? We place our fragile hopes in His hands, but too often the waiting is long, the expectations unmet. We fear disappointment. Sometimes it’s easier not to hope.

The Israelites knew a little about waiting. They waited in slavery, in exile, for the Promised Land, for a Messiah. In their waiting, they hoped. Their expectations grew. They longed for a leader, a savior, one who would protect them from their enemies and carry them to victory. For hundreds of years, they waited and hoped and expected rescue.

And then Jesus came, and He wasn’t anything they expected. But when I look at His birth, I’m reminded why God is worthy of our hope. In Christmas I see that:

God keeps His promises

Jesus fulfilled every prophecy about the Messiah. “For no matter how many promises God has made, they are “Yes” in Christ. And so through him, the “Amen” is spoken by us to the glory of God.” 2 Corinthians 1:20

He has promised us so much – that He will never leave us, He will work all things for good, He will give us abundant life. We can hang our hope on His promises.

He meets our deepest needs

Four men lowered their paralyzed friend through a roof, but instead of healing his body, Jesus forgave his sins (and then healed him). The Israelites thought they needed a leader; God knew they needed a redeemer. We think we know what we want, but God wants to give us what we may not even know we need. Christ’s birth reminds me that not only does He knows my needs, He can also meet them.

His ways are not our ways

The Israelites probably would not have chosen an unwed, teenage mother or a poor carpenter to parent the ruler of the universe, or have made Him a Nazarene. So many of the chapters of my life I would not have written the way God did, but looking back, they are so good. We stumble the most when we hold too tightly to the ways we think God should answer our prayers. Like the Jewish people, we might miss His answers entirely.

He loves us more than life

One of my favorite songs a few years ago was “Touch the Sky,” by Hillsong United. It says, “You traded heaven to have me again.” Christmas tells me to put my hope in Him because of this: He would do anything, give up everything, just to have me.

It might not happen now, or when we expect, but God is always working good on our behalf, meeting our deepest needs, keeping His promises out of his deep love for us. He is worthy of our hope.

This is the season of Advent, which means expectant waiting. So we wait quietly, attentively, continually, dependently. We put our hope not in an outcome, but in a Person.

 

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Hope in a Broken World

Hope in a Broken World
Photo by Jan Tinneberg on Unsplash

 

A friend’s father loses his battle with cancer. News of an impending divorce. The unexpected death of a young man. Abusive words spoken and then rationalized as biblical. One after another, over the span of a week.

Broken.

We live in a broken world.

I desperately don’t want it to be. I want to have a world where fathers don’t die so young, and people keep loving one another, and children stay with us and people bless and don’t curse. I want families intact and relationships strong. I want safe, trusted, constant, faithful.

But we live in a broken world.

So I take this reality to God and say, “What do I do? How do I pray? How do I live in this?”

And He reminds me that he promises to be close to the brokenhearted and to heal them and bind them up. He tells me that He weeps with us and endures with us and walks the hard roads with us, that His compassion is endless and overflowing and His mercy starts all over again every morning. He tells me to trust in this.

So I say, “Come, Lord Jesus.” Come into our brokenness. Come and be all that you promised to be so we have a solid place to stand in it.

We live in brokenness but we are not without hope.

My hope is not that the world will stop being broken, but that we will meet the lover of broken hearts in the midst of it. We will experience Him healing and binding us, bringing beauty from ashes, redeeming the darkness. We will cling to the hope that one day there will be no more brokenness, and every tear will be wiped away. All will be right.

So we keep walking through the brokenness, not in defeat but in hope. Hope in the one who is close to the brokenhearted.

“Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you in turmoil within me? Hope in God; for I shall again praise him, my salvation and my God.”  Psalm 43:5

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Hopes for My Daughter On Turning 13

Hopes for My Daughter On Turning 13

Ok, you finally made it. 13. I have to confess, it’s felt like you’re a teenager for awhile now. You have your emotional ups and downs, and you’re mature beyond your years. That’s my polite way of saying sometimes, girl, you’re a handful. But, I am quick to remind myself that you are far from the terror I was at 13. I wish that on no one.

But whatever handful you are, it’s what you are supposed to be. This is a tough time, and I’m going to tell you that it’s going to get rockier before it gets better. Being a teenager is turbulent. I remember.

I hope it goes well for you. I hope so much. I hope that you navigate these years with confidence, not in yourself, but in who God has made you to be. You are beautifully and wonderfully made. I know you doubt that sometimes, when you look at the widow’s peak you wish I hadn’t given you, or your drive for perfection that frustrates you. But trust me – it’s ALL good. I hope you never let someone else’s words or looks cause you to doubt that truth.

I hope, as you grow and mature, you never lose your childlikeness. It’s different than being childish. Childlike means you stay open, humble, willing to learn, ok with the fact that you’re not there yet, willing to let others help you in your weak places. Jesus
said the kingdom belongs to those people.

I hope, as you grow, that you are gentle with yourself. You’re going to make mistakes. You won’t know what you’re doing. You will have ups and downs and disappointments and regrets, but it’s all part of the process. This is how we learn, so I hope you can smile at the fumbles and say, “Now I know!” and move on with compassion and grace.

I hope you value yourself in relationships. I hope you continue to choose to spend time with people who build you up, who love you as you are, and with whom you can stand your ground. I hope you always believe that you are worth pursuing. I hope you never think you have to change to make yourself likable or attractive to anyone.

I hope you know how normal all this is. I know some days you’ll feel like you could conquer the world, and other days you’ll be shaking in your boots. Sometimes you’ll think I’m the smartest, best mom ever, and other days you’ll think I’m a idiot. Your
emotions will run wild at times and cause you to think and do things that surprise you. I hope you take it all in stride. (I hope I do too!)

I hope you keep following your dreams. They are good dreams. I hope they become clearer and more tangible, but at the same time, I hope they never take the place of God in your heart. I hope you can hold them open to Him and trust that He will do with them what is best for you.

I hope you cling to Jesus. If there is anything I hope for you, it is this. I hope that as you grow, you see more and more how desperately you need Him, and how He is more than sufficient for everything you need. I hope you love Him with everything you have. I hope you taste and see that He is so very good. I hope this relationship guides you and brings you joy.

I hope in Him for you, kiddo. He has great plans for you. Welcome to 13.

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Why God Won’t Just Make It Easier

Why God Won't Just Make It Easier
Photo by Francisco Gonzalez on Unsplash


The last two years we lived in Singapore were, in a word, hard.

The summer prior we’d said goodbye to several families and had to move 2 miles from where we’d been living a glorious communal existence with them.

Within months of living in our new apartment, my allergies kicked in like they’d been making up for lost time. I burned through every over the counter allergy drug Mustafa Centre had to offer within about 2 months.

When I finally broke down and saw an allergist, he put me on an experimental drug that was supposed to eradicate ALL my allergies. Most people saw dramatic results within 4-6 months. I quit after nine because I’d seen no change. He was baffled.

I was just plain tired of it.

In the meantime, he’d put me on a prescription allergy drug as well, which I had to take immediately upon waking.

If I didn’t, forget about it. By 10 am I’d be scratching my face off and unable to see straight through a fog of sneezing. I’d pop some Benadryl, point the kids toward the TV, request that they not kill each other before daddy came home, and let the Benadryl slam me into symptomless sleep.

Homeschool? Barely. Getting out of the house to do fun stuff with the kids? Not much. Meals? Housework? Nope.

On top of that, Erik’s job had become more demanding, and the kids were lonely without the constant presence of friends which had been their previous existence. Yep, it was just. plain. hard.

So often during that time I would cry out to God and ask Him to change it.

I raged. Questioned God. Doubted His love. I pleaded with Him to just make it easier. One day, He responded by gently pointing out that what I was really asking was not to have to need Him quite so much.

We Just Want It to Be Easier

Nobody signs up for “hard.”

It’s not a popular class. We treat it like an elective, but it’s a core course. It’s where we learn to come to the end of ourselves and to trust in His abundant resources.

We say we want to grow in Christlikeness, in character, in faith, but when it comes to the reality of what it takes to get there? I know I for one am often inclined to say, “Um . . . no thanks.”

When trials come, I’m always tempted to say, “God, just make it easier.” I want to jump to the end where I’ve learned the lessons and grown and are all mature and glowing. (that’s what happens, right? Tell me that’s what happens)

But I think back on those two years in Singapore. Yes, they were hard. But were they worth it? You bet.

I can’t tell you how much God met us, and how He used that situation for good (not the least of which was to take us back to China, which was our dream), how He shaped me in that brokenness.

So I have hope. God meets us in the hard, not to make it easier, but to show us that He is strong enough for it if we will just own our deep need for Him and trust Him.

 

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