It all started at a bible study on joy. At the end of the night, the leaders passed out bedazzled rocks with the word joy on them. They ran out of joy rocks right before me and I was handed a hope rock, of all things. I was angry at God. How could he give me a hope rock? I sat there staring at it, incredulous. Just after this I went to a retreat. While there a sweet friend talked about our hope in Christ and that is when it hit me – I was combining my hope in God with my hope to have children. This is something good and pleasing to God, but still I needed to separate the two things.
Ever since then I've been dealing with what hope is and isn't. Our hope in God has to do with his character; his overall plan that we can not see; his provision (no matter what it is); his promise to always be with us; his deep and unfailing love. This hope is not something light and easy...it's hard won; it's raw and gritty and real; it's rough around the edges from our fingers digging in with all our might; it's the belief that we can trust the path that God has us on to be the right one (even if it's not the one of our choosing).
It's hard to hope when it hurts so much, but I have learned that I was putting my hope in God to have something in return. I wanted it so badly that I could not see how I was mingling the two things together too much. Mingling our hopes is easy to do. In fact, it is much easier than recognizing that there are different kinds of hope. The hope for children is one, and the hope in Christ is another.
A friend on HP shared the following about the French words for hope:
French has two words for hope. The first is "espoir", as in I want/hope to have something.
And then there is "espérance", which my bilingual dictionary translates as "hope, expectation". There is no equivalent in English. But get this - here are translations of the definitions of the word from a monolingual French dictionary:
And then there is "espérance", which my bilingual dictionary translates as "hope, expectation". There is no equivalent in English. But get this - here are translations of the definitions of the word from a monolingual French dictionary:
1. Feeling of confidence in the future, enabling one to wait with confidence for the fulfillment of one's desires; hope; e.g. "to live in hope, the hope of a fine future"
2. Person or thing which is the object of this expectation; e.g. "You are my only hope"
3. Theological virtue through which the Christian adheres to God as the supreme purpose of Man in order to obtain divine grace and eternal union with God
Praying for renewed "espérance" in our Lord and His plans for our futures - remember Jeremiah 29:11 - For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you HOPE and a future. (I just checked an on-line French Bible and of course it uses "espérance".)
What cool information, right? I love how that describes the two kinds of hope. Awesome.
Hope is one of my big words in life now. I have it written on rocks, screen savers, jewelry, ornaments, and more as a reminder. My hope is in Christ!
Hope is one of my favorite words, too.
ReplyDeleteWe spent several months trying to become parents of a girl who was in foster care. Her name is Hope. We had a prayer: "Hope for Hope". Alas, it didn't work out the way I would have liked, so the word is bittersweet for me. Life is kind of like that. Even hope in the Bible - when God told the Israelites in Jeremiah 29 that He had plans to prosper them, give them a hope and a future, it was at the beginning of 70 years of exile. Obviously His ideas were much different than ours.
Interestingly, the Greek word that is usually translated "hope" means "confident expectation". I didn't realize that French had a word for hope that meant basically that. I wish English did.
AMEN!
ReplyDeleteIt's a hard thing to distinguish hope for children and hope IN Christ, but once we do it's like the lightbulb moment over our heads. We get it.