Tag Archives: hope

Hope Trusts

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rockclimber

To trust is to transfer confidence from myself to someone or something else. Trust begins with a belief that the someone or something else is worthy of being trusted. Hope begins with a trust that the anchor it holds on to will hold.  When we place our hope in the Lord, we trust that He will hold faithful and strong.

A horse is a vain hope for deliverance, despite all its great strength, it cannot save. But the eyes of the LORD are on those who fear Him, on those whose hope is in His unfailing love, to deliver them from death and keep them alive in famine. We wait in hope for the LORD, He is our help and our shield. In Him our hearts rejoice, for we trust in His holy name.  May your unfailing love rest upon us, O LORD, even as we put our hope in you.  Psalm 33:17-22

When our hope is in the Lord, we have His unfailing love, His deliverance from death, His provision in famine, His help, and His protection to hold on to. Ultimately we have His holy name. If we can even just taste His faithfulness in all these things, we can begin to transfer our confidence fully to Him. He has held firm and secure from generation to generation. He is worthy of our trust.

Guard my life and rescue me, let me not be put to shame for I take refuge in you. May integrity and uprightness protect me, because my hope is in you.   Psalm 25:21

The world around us offers many things to put our hope in. We can hope in our health, our money, our jobs, our perfect children or our popularity. While these all may hold for a while, we know they can fail in an instant.  If we have transferred our confidence to one of these, we are left hopeless when they are gone.

The greater risk to me has been the temptation to place confidence in myself, to trust that I can take care of myself and meet all the needs of my family with my own intellect and strength.

Cursed is the one who trusts in man, who depends on flesh for his strength and whose heart turns away from the LORD… But blessed is the man who trusts in the LORD, whose confidence is in Him. He will be like a tree planted by the water, that sends out its roots by the stream. It does not fear when heat comes; its leaves are always green. It has no worries in a year of drought and never fails to bear fruit.  Jeremiah 17:5-8

Thankfully, The Lord has provided times of extreme heat and severe drought to bring me to the end of myself and transfer my confidence to Him.  Certainly the challenges of diagnosing, accepting and beginning to move forward with a child with special needs have served to break me of me- and have forced me to cry out for God’s help. And He has been faithful.

We can trust God because God is trustworthy. When our souls place our hope in Him, and our confidence is in Him, we find peace and security like the “tree planted by water.” We are provided for. We are protected.

Where are you placing your trust? Is it on someone or something that will eventually fail? Maybe you’re experiencing or have experienced the hopelessness of a hold that has broken for you.  Can you place your trust on the Someone who has held and will hold for all of eternity?

Then you will know that I am the LORD; those who hope in me will not be disappointed.  Isaiah 49:23

My hope is built on nothing less

Than Jesus’ blood and righteousness

I dare not trust the sweetest frame

But wholly lean on Jesus name

When darkness veils His lovely face

I rest on His unchanging grace

In every high and stormy gale

My anchor holds within the veil

His oath, His covenant His blood

Support me in the whelming flood

When all around my soul gives way

He then is all my hope and stay.

On Christ the solid Rock I stand

All other ground is sinking sand

All other ground is sinking sand.

Special Hope

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MotheronDock

Maybe you knew before your child was born. Maybe you knew in the early months when development seemed delayed. Maybe it wasn’t until your child came into puberty that the difference became clear. Nevertheless, you discovered your child was different. And whether that difference is mild or severe, we as mothers of “different” children face unique challenges on our parenting journey.

I have learned from sharing with other mothers of children with special needs, and from my own parenting experience, that though each child’s diagnosis may be very different, our challenges are very similar. We all face grief and disappointment, isolation and fear, discouragement and uncertainty. We have all had those moments of complete despair, crying out face down, begging for God’s salvation. We have all felt the loneliness and exhaustion that can settle in at the end of a hard day.

For those of us who know Christ as our Savior and Lord, we have also experienced God’s faithful hand holding true through those desperate moments. The Comforter has come near with His presence and power. We have glimpsed His glory in moments of peace and love, victory and joy. In spite of all the hard, God has been good.

We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure. Hebrews 6:19

Sailors cast out anchors to hold their boats secure through storms. So too must we learn to cast out an anchor to hold firm and secure through the storms we face.  Hope is that anchor.  Hope is faith in knowing the storm will pass, an expectation that God will bring us through.

Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer. Romans 12:12

God’s Word is rich in encouragement for mothers of a child (or children) with special needs. This simple verse gives a theme for our lives on this journey. May we find the joy in holding on to hope.  May we find patience resting deep in our soul as we walk through affliction.  May we be faithful to stay down on our knees in prayer.

The purpose of “Special Hope” is to give biblical encouragement to mothers of children with special needs, applying God’s Word and practical experience, bringing special hope in the unique challenges we face. When our souls are anchored to hope, we find peace even in the hardest of trials. We move onward with the strength, wisdom and joy Christ is faithful to give.

This blog is focused on encouraging moms who faithfully care for their children. As in an airplane we are told to put our own oxygen masks on first, then on our children, so too must we feed our hearts, souls and minds first so we can best serve our children. May God use His Holy Word and the words offered here to greater fill your cup.

Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for He who promised is faithful.  Hebrews 10:23