May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. (Romans 15:13) Hope. You cannot live without it. The question is: What have you placed your hope in? It’s easy to give the glib answer and say your expectations rest in the Lord. I recently discovered, much to my chagrin, a subtle error I was making in this regard. For several years I prayed for a certain route of deliverance about a disturbing issue in my life. I thought my hope was in the Lord—I trusted Him to fix my problem, didn’t I? But one day I was forced to ask myself, “Do I want the Deliverer more than I want the deliverance?” The thought gave me pause. Yet if I truly want the Lord above all else, then I have Hope indeed. And in Him, unfulfilled dreams can live right alongside peace and joy. ~ Ruth Comfort Cafe
So what is Hope? What is hope in God? And how do we live with our unfulfilled dreams? How do we cope? How do we hand these over to God? How? How do we cope when we walk into church to find there the woman who the guy you like spent a whole evening talking to - and pretty much ignoring you? When you know (through Facebook) he's been chatting with her, seeing her (not necessarily like 'that', parties and stuff)? And when your vicar's 4-year-old who previously would come and chat to you, doesn't want to know you 'cos she's sat with this new girl? I tell you... the love of a 4-year-old being lost. That surely hurts the most!
So what do you do? Well... I walked out during the prayer. And burst into tears. Despite spending the week knowing that this was a possibility - even having imagined it - it was still hard to walk in and find her there. Although I wasn't surprised in the slightest. But how do I cope with this? You know, what hurts the most is that I don't seem to enter his radar as possible girls to get to know. Maybe it's 'cos someone tried to set us up the first time we met. Maybe it's because I'm fucked up - and talk about it. Maybe, maybe, maybe... I'll never know. But it still hurts. Makes me sad. Another nail in the 'you're sooo not wife material' coffin.
But having hope... how? |
4 year olds can be very fickle. It's worse when they are grown and still fickle.