True or False [Hope]?

I wrote this on some notepaper almost a week ago, but didn't have time to blog it until now.

I love my husband.

I love our children.

I love the home and life we've made together, that God has blessed us with.

Moments of panic or despair seize me when I see or feel that I've done nothing else with my life, or with my gifts and talents, or with my passions, because of defeat through my own flaws, or defeat through exhaustion and feeling overwhelmed by my responsibilities and then a lack of sufficient time.

What good are my gifts and talents and passions then?

Most mammals can procreate, feed their young, the population has homes to keep. What gifts/talents/passions are needed for that?

Why am I the way I am, if I was not intended to use what I've been given? Better to have been born ordinary than to suffer my gifts to an ordinary (though nice and noble) life.

So I try to carve out a niche, I keep hoping, I try to protect the flame.

The other option, that I can see, is to snuff the flame and see if I can survive as a “Stepford”. I actually tried that for a couple weeks, but God did not bless it.

So the struggle continues and my hope is in God's grace being sufficient for my weakness and for my passion.

My hope is in His goodness. In His plan. And when I am weak, I rage, and the enemy prowls around like a lion, watching for his opportunity to bring me down.

He who hopes, lives; he who's hope is lost, is lost.

As the Church we have a hope. But even then, it is not church, but our relationship with Jesus, our knowing of, and knowing we are known by God, that gives true hope.

False hopes abound and are dashed every day, hearts and lives are lost.

I can only point in the direction of true hope as I find it myself, live it myself.

It is a huge battle to enter into the place where true hope lives, because of the one who knows his defeat is imminent, his power weakened, his authority taken away, when the children of God awaken to who they are in Him.

The nucleus of holiness that contains true hope will burn off us anything of no eternal value. The closer I get, the more I burn, the more I see how much I carry has no eternal value. His love for me is the only thing that keeps me moving forward. Period.

Later this past week I was desperate to hear what God would say, I even woke up at 3am and then got up at 3:30am to spend some alone time with Him, but even at that hour, my toddler decided to have loud conversation, so I went back to bed. Later that morning, as I stumbled toward the coffee-maker for that life giving elixer, He spoke: “Psalm 23:3”. Not being sure of what it said, I looked it up. In 30 seconds He is able to do so much with one. Little. Word.

“He restores my soul.

He guides me in paths of righteousness,

For His name's sake.”

He cares about me. He restores my soul. He guides me. And He does it for me for the sake of His Name.

That pretty much clinches it.

I'm good for another, well... oh week, at least. :-)

No, in all seriousness, these things go deep and do their work. I was also blessed that same day from a meeting with one of my pastors. God is good. Period.

Love,

M