Why Hope in 2016

11

January 11, 2016 by CassieCravings

Hope is a word with significant meaning to our family. It is what has anchored us through recurrent miscarriages. Hope is what gave us the courage to put one step in front of the other through an infertility diagnosis and into our adoption journey. Without hope, we would have no story. As 2015 came to a close, however, I found myself forgetting hope and clinging to worry and despair. I found myself saying, “What if…” instead of “When…”, that is until Hope began to seek me out.

On Christmas I opened a plain brown card. On the cover were cheery stickers spelling out the word hope. The message inside the card revealed that my family was praying a very specific word over me this year. The word was hope. I tucked the card away safely, as well as the idea of renewing hope for my family.

As are things meant to be noticed, there were glimpses of hope everywhere over the next few days.

A book I ordered before the holidays came in the mail. I opened the package excitedly, not even waiting to close the front door before ripping open the cardboard box. The title: Hope for a Weary Mom. I had forgotten that the book had been ordered. I felt that familiar whisper: I hear you. I know the desires of your heart. I have not forgotten.

“I felt that familiar whisper: I hear you. I know the desires of your heart. I have not forgotten.”

The first Sunday of 2016 came quickly this year. We filed into the rows and settled into our first message of the new year. I sat expectantly with my pen in hand ready to take notes in a brand new composition book purchased for the occasion of the new year. Across the screen flashed the sermon topic: Hope. Do you ever have the feeling that a sermon was written especially for you? I did that morning. Perhaps the message wasn’t just for me, but the words spoke directly to my soul: “Hope is the confident expectation that the God of all is in control and has the future in His hands” (Dave Riggle, Second Baptist @1463).

Moment by moment that first week of January the word hope came to me in many different ways. The handwritten card by a family member, the title of a book I had previously ordered, the words of a sermon. Over and over these little tokens urged me to keep hoping, to continue to confidently expect that God is in control, and breathed new life into the desires of my heart. Again hope picked me up from the weariness of waiting. Again hope allowed to me look forward even in my struggles.

“Hope is the thread that has woven my family’s story together from the very beginning.”

Hope is the thread that has woven my family’s story together from the very beginning. Walking through the pain of losing 6 babies, the burden of fertility treatments, the diagnosis of infertility, the day-to-day pain from growing and bursting cysts, the waiting for adoption has all worn heavily on us. However, every single tear of our heart has been threaded back together with hope. And it will continue to be.

As we begin 2016, I have no great resolve or lists of resolutions. But I do have hope. Daily I will renew it, hourly if need be. “I will hope continually and will praise You yet more and more” (Psalm 71:4).

Happy 2016, Friends. I wish you much hope this year and in the years to come.