Hope

I don't think about hope very often.

It's not usually a part of my vocabulary. I think grace and peace and love and freedom, but hope - I don't really talk about that. Not that I don't have anything I hope for (I have lots of things!), but I don't really ask myself what it is or really cling to it or am grateful for it or really give it much head space.

But lately, I think it's what I've been clinging to.

Lately, I think it's what I've been needing.

These past few days have been oh.so.hard.

Lots of retrieval back into old ways and habits. Lots of forgetfulness of how God has redeemed and delivered. Lots of mind control and trying to take thoughts captive. Lots of palpable fears. I'm cut wide open and I'm letting satan and old me have a good old time.

And then I hear Beth Moore say.

MOVE.

RISE UP MIGHTY WARRIOR.

STOP LYING DOWN AND GET UP.

YOU WERE NEVER MEANT FOR DEFEAT.

And then my corner brings to me questions she's been asking herself - why get your hopes up when something might not work out?

And then she answers.. but SO WHAT. so you lived in hope.

ISN'T THAT BETTER THAN LIVING IN FEAR?

{YES THAT IS SO MUCH BETTER}

And then I find an Ann Voskamp blog post about just this very thing. She writes "hope, it is exquisitely fragile and it is an exceptional force and it is essential to faith and you cannot afford to lose it. Lose your fears but never your hope. It isn't the likelihood of your hope that sustains you, but the object of your hope that sustains you."

ah. breathe easy. breathe deep.

all these things. I remember. oh I've been freed.

There is freedom in hope. There is hope in freedom. We are freed and made alive in Christ. And that gives us hope - a tremendous amount. We can hope in change, in new life, in celebration, in moving mountains. When Christ is the ultimate object of all that we hope, then oh we can hope in all that is to come.

we don't HAVE to fear.

there is choice.

we don't HAVE TO FEAR.

WE DON"T HAVE TO FEAR.

{a process. more to come}