I wish to keep this posting shorter but sweet, and this topic is sweet: Hope. Not just any hope, mind you, but hope in God. God’s hope. Thinking on the topic causes this almost physical reaction in me…a warming up…a settling in…a peace.
Sometimes hope seems in short supply. Sometimes hope’s well is dusty bone dry. I don’t think I exaggerate when I say that a few of my friends might be there even now.
Frankly, I think hope is hardest to hold when in the in-between time, which is how I define a waiting period fraught with varying degrees of difficulty. One might lend itself to boredom, another time to despair. They’re the times we bide until we get a spouse, a friend, a place, a church, a job, a purpose, a house, a grade, a child, an accomplishment. A consequence. It’s the time in which we wait for an illness to heal, a prodigal to call, or a tattered heart to mend.
The irony of the in-between time is that the older I get, the more I feel as if I'm there. I won’t lie to you—they get longer and longer. It’s impossible for me to count milestones by a semester, or a degree, or a promotion. At my age and in my circumstances, life can be routine. I would guess the in-between time is almost ongoing, probably over ninety-five percent of the life I experience.
One of my hardest in-between times was when we moved back to Texas from Canada.
We loved Montreal. We didn’t think it was perfect, but it was interesting and an adventure. We had friends there. We were trying to put down roots, so we bought a house.
It was a charming, small house in a gorgeous neighborhood. It was not far out of the city center, so Craig’s commute to work was short (The shortest it’s been during our marriage.). Then and before we moved in, we borrowed and spent loads of money remodeling it, thinking it to be a good investment.
Little more than a year after we moved in, Craig’s boss called him into his office and told Craig that they no longer needed him in Montreal.
This didn’t seem so devastating. We decided we would take the opportunity to move closer to family, and Craig soon had a job at the same firm in Houston. His gracious parents allowed us to move in with them, and we placed our precious house on the market.
Honestly, I was confident that we wouldn’t be living with them long (more like an extended visit.). Our house would sell pronto, I reassured myself during quiet moments. It was in a wonderful neighborhood and cute as a button, after all.
Then it didn’t.
No one wanted our precious house into which we had poured our heart and soul (or should I say money and time), at least not at a price that would allow us to walk away without losing our shirts.
How humiliating and distressing do you think it would be to be living with your husband’s parents for ten months when you’re forty (Yes, I was forty!)? It felt devastating at the time. All my pride went down the toilet along with most of our money.
When people asked us where we were living, I would say we were ‘staying’ with my in-laws.
I guess I’m pretty good at spin if I have enough time to puzzle it out.
One day, I was sitting in church with my mother-in-law at Champion Forest Baptist, and a guest speaker gave the sermon. I wish I could remember more of what he said, but I know it was on the subject of waiting on God. He gave a moving testimony of some sort. All I remember is crying copious, quiet tears; and my sweet mother-in-law comforting me.
It was a turning point. I decided I didn’t want to live in discontent or fear of what petty people thought of us while in the in-between. I didn’t want to live with a constant low-level of worry about money.
In other words, I decided to believe what I professed. That God—only God—was my hope. Our situation was humbling, but I was ready to submit to it because I believed I needed to be there to become more Christ-like.
I did need to be there.
So with hope in God, I let go and relearned how to count my blessings no matter the circumstances. A good way to put it would be that God delivered me with hope; then He blessed us with a change in living situation.
Yet at times I'm fickle and I forget. So when I'm in the difficult in-between place, I have to once again ask myself some tough questions. Do I truly believe that God is my strength, rescuer, refuge, and only hope like David (Psalms 18:1-6, 16-19)? Do I believe that I should fix my eyes on Jesus, so God can guide me through the difficult times, or do I trust my own ability to solve my problems (Hebrews 12:1-3)? Have I embraced the process to become more Christ-like (1 John 3:2-3)?
Have I decided to see past my circumstances, past mistakes, excuses, and distractions to let God out of the box in which I've placed Him once again?
I don’t have to wait for Him to prove Himself, after all—He already has by the blood of Jesus and the creation of, well, the world.
(It can be a) Happy Friday, everyone.