I think the most difficult times in life often trigger the greatest measures of joy.  In fact, it’s hard to imagine joy without challenges.  How do you know something is truly good unless you first know something is bad?  How do you truly appreciate a blessing unless you first feel the weight of a trial?  How do you find hope unless you first have a need for it?

This last month has been one of the most difficult times of my life. I have been sick to what felt like the brink of death. I just wanted the pain to stop. I would wake every morning in tears, and often fell asleep to them as well.  I have been discouraged and at a loss of hope.  

I preach, and I usually live under, this motto: it’s ok to have a pity party, just don’t unpack and live there.  I can usually look at life’s circumstances and know that whatever is going on is temporary – it WILL change.  Life always finds a way.  But I tossed those thoughts aside for a while and wallowed in the sickness. 

In this last week that I’ve improved, it’s been important for me to find hope and I’ve realized hope has many faces and comes in different sizes.

• My family is first and foremost the greatest treasure I have and the easiest and best place to find hope.  It just takes one of them (my husband, children or grandchildren) to walk through the door and smile at me – and hope overcomes whatever sickness has overtaken me.
• I am sitting by the fire this morning listening to rain fall on our tin roof and looking out across an oak grove where deer are bedded down.  I get the sense they know they are safe near us.  There is a measure of hope that comes from the serenity that surrounds me.  *
• I had appointments this week with two of my doctors.  It is clear we are at a crossroads and need to make some changes.  So from a medical, dietary, and lifestyle standpoint, we are doing just that.  I slept soundly that night.  And I woke with a new drive to focus on those changes, a drive that comes from hope for a future.
• I get excited about the silliest things – a new Ross store opened in our town a few weeks ago.  I’ve been there twice.  This has given me hope in two ways: first, retail therapy is incredibly healing and second, I’ve been capable of getting out of bed and spending time shopping.  Just the presence of the new Ross sign on the road makes me smile and think about a future visit.  Like I said – silly, I know.  But hope filled regardless.

Jeremiah 29:11 says “For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the LORD, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope” (NKJV).  The more literally translation of “a future and a hope” is “an unexpected end”.  I had the privilege this week of receiving an unexpected phone call.  One that gave me more hope for a future than I’ve dared feel lately.  

God gives us glimpses of hope in so many ways.  It’s what we do with that hope that defines us.  It would be so easy to stay in bed and let the sinkhole of despair suck me in.  I truly believe God let’s us experience trials so we can also experience the fullness of hope.  

Whatever you are going through right now, fight to get through to the other side.  Because when that other side comes (and it will) you just may find the many faces of hope there to welcome you.  

* Yes I get the irony that I am finding peace in the presence of the very thing the brought about this sickness – the deer tick.  We make every effort to be smart about tick prevention but I refuse to live in fear of that stupid little bug.  Finding a healthy balance between the two is tricky, but important to my state of mind.