Hope

Funny how I just mentioned yesterday that I didn't read anything that struck me in my daily devotionals. And funny how God heard that and just bombarded me with truth and treasures today. I guess He struck me out!

I've been reading through the Book of Psalms, and today, I read Psalm 113.

He raises the poor from the dust
and lifts the needy from the ash heap;
he seats them with princes,
with the princes of their people.
He settles the barren woman in her home
as a happy mother of children.
(Ps 113:7-9)

These 2 verses in particularly spoke to me because I've been walking with a couple of my closest friends who are struggling with infertility. It's such a long journey of ups and downs, anxiety, anticipation, disappointment...just a plethora of emotions. I can't imagine what they are going through. Why am I so blessed to have 3 beautiful children, and why God can't just grant them one?

Still, who am I to question God? But these verses in Psalm 113 tells me that even in the midst of tragedy, of difficult times, there is hope. God may not give us the outcome we desire. But He does gives us an outcome - one that we may not expect, but one that still fills the desires of our hearts, if our hearts are open to Him.

In "The Return of the King" of the famed Lord of the Rings trilogy, when the beacons of Gondor were lit, Gandalf mentioned to Pippin that the small lit beacon in the distant represented hope.

I pray that we will all find a small beacon of hope in the midst of our own difficult times. For our God is a God of Hope, and that hope will keep us going.