Hope

    Sometimes life is just hard, ya know?  I mean, really, sometimes there really isn't a solution to the problem, sometimes there is no reconciliation, sometimes the pain doesn't end, sometimes there are just hard things.  The past few months have been a barrage of hard things... now let's not get caught up in the comparison of hard times, hard times are hard times for the person that is experiencing them and to compare pain is meaningless and demeaning.  Many of us have heard comments that tell us, in essence, just keep moving, be stronger, get through it.  Now, in some sense I agree with the ideas in these comments.  What is the alternative really?  Just stop living?  Curl up on your couch with whatever numbs you and hide?  That is not living.  That is not why God has us here.  So what do we do?  When times are hard and there are no answers, when surviving is about all we can muster up the strength to do.  We turn to our hope.  I ran across this scripture today from Lamentations: Lamentations 3:21-22 Yet I still dare to hope when I remember this: The faithful love of the Lord never ends! His mercies never cease. 

     And there it is,  I dare still hope when I remember the faithful love of God never ends!  What immeasurable grace! I have begun asking God to give me "see through vision".  That he would make me brave, not because of anything to do with myself, but that I have a hope that gives me strength for the hard times!  He makes me brave, His love, His mercy, His grace... I can face the hard because He is in my corner.  Not passively watching but embracing me and strengthening me!  James says to consider is pure joy when we experience suffering of various kinds, why? Because we know the testing of our faith produces endurance and steadfastness.  Trials, hard times, desert seasons, are our training grounds! God is strengthening our faith in Him! There is beauty, even life, in the desert! The picture posted below is of the Bad Lands, the infamously dry and vegetation-less desert.  However, during very rare seasons beauty springs up out of the dry hard ground!  God make my faith like that of these beautiful flowers that have strengthened and adapted to the desert to bloom and produce something awe inspiring! May these hard seasons not be kept inside but made useful in being shared!