Tag: hope

Peace

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In Exodus 33, we read about Moses pitching his tent far away from everyone else. This tent is referred to as The Tent of Meeting. When he did this, the curiosity of the people of Israel peaked. They would watch with an expectation of what would happen. They knew that when Moses sought to meet with the Lord, the Lord was faithful to meet with Moses. And as they waited, they worshiped. Verse eleven says how the Lord spoke to Moses as one speaks to a friend, face to face.

His words to the Lord were, “See, you have said to me, ‘Bring up this people,’ but you have not let me know whom you will send with me. Yet you have said, ‘I know you by name, and you have also found favor in my sight'” (Exodus 33:13 ESV). Moses had been tasked with leading all 4 million of God’s people, and was quick to bring his worry to the source of who could supply peace over his concern.

Moses knew his task and also knew God’s promise over him. Yet, he found himself uncertainty about how God would make a way. The Lord powerfully responded to Moses, saying, “My presence will go with you, and I will give you rest” (Exodus 33:14 ESV). Moses, tasked with an insurmountable job, responds with significant words, “If your presence will not go with me, do not bring us up from here” (Exodus 33:15 ESV).

He could not bear the thought of going forward without the presence of the Lord; that is what he desired above all else. He knew that the peace he was desperate for could only be supplied by the presence of the Lord.
The Lord who was speaking and meeting with Moses in this passage is the pre-incarnate Jesus. Though He was yet to be born, He was present. Though His Advent was yet to come, He came. He came to supply Moses’ need for peace through His presence alone. He came to spend time with Moses like a faithful friend.

Feeling anxious and uncertain is a crux of the human experience. It is nothing new. It is an ancient struggle. But just as the Lord promised His presence and rest to Moses, He promises the same to you. The faithful shepherd that David writes about in Psalm 23, leading him to the rest, provision, protection, and the restoration of his soul, is the same shepherd that offered it to Moses. His presence was with Moses. It was with David. It is with you.

When your soul longs for peace, know you can go to the supplier of living water and be fully satisfied in Him. His face will shine toward you. He will offer you His peace to become yours. His presence is our peace. His presence is a promise. Seek Him. Go to your “tent of meeting” and worship while you wait for Him to meet you there. When Moses asked the Lord, who will you send to go with me? The Lord replied “I will go with you, Moses.” Praise be to God!

Lord, as we long for peace, will you remind us it is You alone our souls long for? Help us to remember the promise of your presence as we walk the path you have laid before us. Fill us with the peace only You can supply. Please turn your glorious face toward us and faithfully meet us as we seek to meet with you? Help us to worship while we wait, expectantly.

Hope

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Jeremiah is nicknamed “the weeping prophet”. He had a nature of being gloomy and downcast. If you have spent any time reading through the book penned by him, Lamentation, you will be quick to realize why that nickname is so fitting. His grief over God’s people is tangible. His heartache over them turning their heart from the covenant they made with Him is evident. Jeremiah had the burden of being a prophet when God’s people could not have cared less that they were God’s people. And yet Jeremiah found himself, as downcast as he was, not without hope.

“The Lord is my portion,” says my soul, “therefore I will hope in him.”
Lamentations 3:24

The word hope in this verse is the Hebrew word yāhal, meaning wait, hope, expect. Jeremiah was not only clinging to hope but was also staying with the expectation that the Lord would supply hope to him. Jeremiah couldn’t muster up the hope he needed to carry the weight of his weary soul; only the Lord could do that. And neither can you.
We wait with the expectation of hope in this advent season. But why is hope important? Why is it necessary? Why is the hope of Christ one of the promises we receive from Him?
Because the reality is that difficult times surround us or will soon surround us. They hit us like a colossal wave out of nowhere; circumstances leave us disoriented and confused about what happened and where to go next. Hope anchors us.

The security of our hope depends upon the security of what we have placed our hope in. If our hope source is faulty and fragile, then when the waves of life come to beat us down, they will carry us off. There will be nothing secure and steadfast anchoring us to a solid place. Sand and waves go hand in hand. Sand goes where the waves take it. A secure foundation of hope means our hope must be anchored to rock, not sand. The rock is solid and secure. It’s not being tossed about when waves come; it remains. Our hope must be anchored to the rock, which is Jesus.
It is okay to feel hopeless. I have been there more times than I can count. Feeling hopeless is not the measure of a follower of Christ. Feeling hopeless is the measure of being human. There is a difference between the reality of feeling hopeless and the knowledge that despite it, you are, in fact, not without hope. Those two things can exist at once. Feeling and knowing are two separate things.

Feeling hopeless does not mean that what we have placed our hope in is faulty; it means our ability to cling to it when life gets hard is faulty because we are human. Fixing your eyes on Jesus gets much more complicated when life spins out of control. But in the center of the storm, there is always peace to be found! And that peace is Christ. Cling to knowing that Christ is your hope, even when all hope feels lost. Wait with the expectation that He who supplied perfect hope to you once before will supply it once again!

I Was A Teen Mom: Beauty For Ashes

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I was 16 years old when I discovered I was pregnant. I remember looking at my reflection in the mirror with total disbelief and shock. Have you ever had a moment where your life flashed before your eyes? That’s what it was like. But instead of my past, I watched as everything I envisioned for my future die. I watched as everything I had hoped for shatter into a million peaces. Every dream I ever dreamt lit into flames and burned to ashes. There was nothing left of my future as I knew it. No going off to college. No marrying a man who would love me and lead me the way I deeply desired. No senior prom, or sleepovers with my friends. All of it gone. The dreams I hadn’t even begun to dream yet, were not even going to be in the equation. I was alone, I was afraid, and I was broken. 

Once the news got around, and let me tell you it was lightening fast. (There are both pros and cons of living in a small town.) That’s when my walls went up. I knew that everyone was whispering behind my back. I knew the things they were saying about me. I saw the side eye judgmental looks coming at me like daggers. I knew, like clockwork, I would have to run to the bathroom during first block every day to throw up without fail. This was my reality now. I had gone from good student, member of the dance team, pastors daughter to the most talked about individual of my small town.

“Don’t let them see you sweat.” That’s what was on constant replay in my mind. It was like a motto to myself. I put on a brave face for the world. Nobody ever saw me cry, only smile. I cried alone but only when I allowed myself, which honestly wasn’t very often. I watched as plenty of people I knew cried for me, but not me. I was stoic. Too afraid to let my own feelings in, I did not have time to deal with feelings. There were too many of them, and they were far too overwhelming to handle. I had bigger things than my own feelings to worry about. Bigger things to figure out. A lot of logistics to get ready for that I knew nothing about.

Eventually, my own feelings started to take over. I didn’t mean for them to, but how could they not? On the outside I was solid as granite, but on the inside I was starting to crack. I was worried that I would have to break my own rule and people would see me struggle. Eventually the words people were saying about me started to take root in my own mind and grow. Weeds grow fast. And I started believing all the things being whispered behind my back. I believed lies.

One Sunday morning, a wife of one of the pastors at my church, Gloria, came up to me and handed me a scripture on a little sticky note. It was Luke 6:21, “Blessed are you who weep now, for you shall laugh.” She didn’t have to ask me if I was weeping. She knew. She acknowledged my grief, but showed me the promise that said I wouldn’t weep forever. The promise of laughter. I clung to that promise as tightly as I could. I said it over and over in my head. It got me out of bed every morning. It allowed me to fall asleep every night. And the promise was true. Because He is always faithful to keep his promises.  My heart began to soften because of this new found hope, and I began to see that there were still people in my life who didn’t want to shame me but wanted to build me up.

 The sweet ladies at my church threw a baby shower for me. They wanted to celebrate me even though I didn’t feel as though I deserved celebrating. And my dearest, truest friend Isabelle threw a shower for my circle of friends from school. It was then I knew how truly loved, welcomed and not forgotten I was. Just how much people deeply cared about me. I wrote thank you notes for hours every evening until my hand couldn’t write any longer. There was so much grace being poured out over me that it was impossible to feel any other way but loved and seen.

I was so humbled by the kindness of those who loved me unconditionally that I had a complete perspective shift. In that time the only thing I could offer God was my broken spirit, my shattered heart, the literal ashes of my previous life. I had nothing else of myself to give. And thats all he wanted from me. That’s all he ever wanted to begin with, my heart in its sincerest form. I love how The Message words it. “I learned God-worship when my pride was shattered. Heart-shattered lives ready for love don’t for a moment escape God’s notice (Psalm 51:17).” I could offer only ashes, and in their place he gave beauty.

It wasn’t until just a few years ago, while I was listening to a podcast, that Joel chapter 2 was poured into my heart. My favorite verses are 25-26, “I will repay you for the years the locusts have eaten- the great locust and the young locust, the other locust and the locus swarm-my great army that I sent among you. You will have plenty to eat, until you are full, and you will praise the name of the Lord your God, who has worked wonders for you; never again will my people be shamed.” It so perfectly stated how I now felt. When I was 16 and 17, I lived through really difficult days. I had so often felt swarmed by locusts, so many types of locusts. I felt as though they had eaten away everything I had, all my dreams, plans, hopes, and desires. It wasn’t until I heard this out loud that I realized this is exactly what God has done for me. 

The years of my life eaten by locust have been repaid to me. The dreams I thought I had to let die, God restored. The hopes I had for my life, God filled. The desires I had for myself, God gave to me. The plans I created, God improved. I had made choices that made it seem as though the life I always longed for was impossible. But we serve a God that says “nothing is impossible for me”. The things I thought I ruined the chances of, were still given to me. In a bigger way than I could ever have dreamed. Trenton, my husband, came into my life in a miraculous way, which is a whole other story of redemption for another time. I may not have went “off” to college, but I went to college. I was even given a vocal scholarship, which was so humbling. I went to senior prom and was voted prom queen, that completely shocked me. I had many sleepovers with my friends. God did the impossible in my life. He continues to do the impossible every single day. And I laughed, a lot. I’m still laughing. 

Some scars are still there. So invisible to everyone else and yet so obvious to me. The mindset of constant worrying what everyone will think about the choices I’m making, is still something I have to daily overcome. Those thoughts from when I was 16 and 17 really consumed my mind for years. The times that some people went out of their way just to be cruel, I can’t erase. But those moments don’t bother me anymore. I’ve grown so much from that experience. It’s almost as if it happened to somebody else.

I often think of my life in two sections, before my world got flipped upside down and after. I think of how I walked though fire but that I never walked alone. I look back and think how this experience made me into such a strong woman. How much wisdom I gained from it. That becoming a mom is such a blessing. I wouldn’t trade any of it.

God really does give beauty for ashes. When I offered up the ashes of my life wholeheartedly, He then, in return, gave me a life that I thought I had thrown away. And He gave me himself, thats the beauty.

Peace

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My name is Olivia (this is not new information). My parents picked that name for me before they ever saw my face. Before they ever held me in their arms. They named me. They chose what I would be called for my whole life. Before I ever took a breath I was loved, SO long wished for, and named. Olivia. When you look up my name it means “olive tree”. I can promise you my parents did not pick that name because of it’s meaning, they simply liked it. And in their minds it fit. But God saw their hearts, and said ‘you may have chosen this name out of simple joys but I’m writing a story with this name. With these 6 random letters placed together, I’m pouring my glory in.’

Two weeks ago our family relocated to Madrid, Spain. Would you like to know what you get when you mix extreme jet lag, confusion, and a totally new environment that looks and sounds nothing like you know…

Culture shock- noun.
The feeling of disorientation experienced by someone when they are suddenly subjected to an  unfamiliar culture, way of life, or set of attitudes.

Reality hit me like a ton of bricks. My mind spiraled really fast into panic mode “I don’t know where the grocery store is, much less what it’s called. But it doesn’t matter anyway because I have no car to get around or know how to navigate a metro. And I wouldn’t dare venture out anyway because my cell phone has been rendered useless. And even if I was brave and went out I couldn’t ask for directions because I speak no Spanish and can’t use Google translate because, like I already established no cell phone.” You see where this is going. My eyes and my mind had a strong deer in headlights look. And I questioned our choice to move (for about a day). Even though we were so divinely brought here (that is a story for another time), so obviously called here, so supernaturally placed here… I doubted. I doubted his goodness and his faithfulness.

On the second day we were here we had appointments to view potential homes (we are currently staying in a temporary apartment). So with my deer in headlights eyes and attitude we went. And I was about 110% sure no house we saw would feel like a home to me and even if it did it probably wouldn’t work out for it to be ours. Because we really are our own worst enemy sometimes. We walked into the first house and much to my surprise I liked it, like REALLY liked it. We finished inside the house then transitioned to look outside. We followed the realtor out the door, he was talking about this and talking about that. He was explaining how the awning worked and where the outlets were. Truth be told I was half listening because it wasn’t interesting conversation. Then he said something I will never forget, under his breath practically, barely audible, “here is the olive tree”. Everybody followed in a single file line behind him, not much to see with that they all thought. But I couldn’t follow. I was stopped dead in my tracks.

I looked at that olive tree, and it hit me. God spoke so prophetically over me in that moment and said, “Do you see what I’ve done? I did this all so you could glimpse my glory. My goodness. My faithfulness. You’re here. You Olivia, the olive tree. I planted you here. You’re rooted here already, you’re home.” All this time of waiting, of moving, of hoping, of doubting lead me here to this moment.

How many circumstances lead me here? How many puzzle pieces did God so perfectly orchestrate to land me in this moment facing this tree? I can think of a few. Trenton had to get a transfer to Spain, somebody had to plant this olive tree, this house had to be available for rent, the list goes on and on honestly. Then my mind starts to wonder would I be standing here in this moment if I never would have met Trenton? Did all those painful years of infertility my parents suffered lead me to this moment? I think it all fits. I think every single circumstance in our life leads us where we are called to go. The mountain top joys and the valleys of deep sadness, they all work together to form a beautiful masterpiece we could never even imagine existed. Because after all, thats what is promised to us. The book of Romans states “God causes EVERYTHING to work together for the GOOD of those who love him”.

I prayed for peace on that day when my heart and mind were overwhelmed. A small, sincere prayer. And I was handed peace. Literally right into my physical hand. I could reach out and touch those olive tree leaves.

When God flooded the earth it rained for 40 days and 40 nights. It did not let up. How uncertain Noah and his family must have felt. Did they doubt the faithfulness of God? Did they think they would ever get off this rocking, smelly, damp boat? I bet they CRAVED peace. Peace in the waves rocking them, peace for the storm that didn’t seem like it would ever let up, peace for their hearts and minds. Then the rain stopped. And they waited. For 150 days the earth was overcome with flooding. And now, if not already I bet they really began to cry out to God.
Maybe they said things like:
“How much longer Lord must we wait with no sign of this flood ending?”
“God why have you forgotten about us?”
“We were faithful to your command and you left us here to die!”

Now scripture never says that they actually said these things, or questioned these things in their hearts. But I would be surprised if they didn’t. Wouldn’t you have? I know I would have doubted the faithfulness of God, even though he had brought me so far already. Even though 100% of the time before he had been faithful to me. My favorite parts of scripture is when it uses the words “But God”, and thats exactly what is used in this recounting of Noah’s experience. Right after it says how long the flood waters sat there, right when their doubt was at its peak and they felt totally abandoned, it says “But God remembered Noah”. Just like he remembers us today. God was waiting for the perfect moment to extend His glory for Noah’s good. When Noah sent the dove out for the second time it returned with a freshly plucked olive leaf. This is why we still see the olive branch as a symbol of peace today. It signaled the end of God’s judgement on the earth. It was a sign to Noah and his family that they had not been forgotten. It was the peace Noah and his family so desperately longed for. And for me it was the peace I needed in my heart to know this city I now call home, was where I can be planted and bloom.

I want you to hear my heart here. This is NOT a story about me and my cool experience. Even though it happened to me. This is a story about God and his supreme glory and unwavering faithfulness. It’s about how I keep learning just how faithful He is, and how true the name Prince Of Peace is. We all crave peace in one form or another in a particular area of our life. With a small three word prayer, “Give me peace” God unraveled a story he has been writing a long long long time before I ever came to be. This was all pre ordained before I was even born. Before my parents ever met, He had a plan.  He was orchestrating this beautiful picture and I never even knew it. I just get to experience it and be thankful for it.

When I stopped and stared that day at my olive tree, I saw so much of God’s faithfulness planted where I now stood. Maybe you’re struggling to find peace in your life. Maybe there are situations beyond your control that don’t seem fair or good. And my heart hurts for you. I may not know what you’re walking through or experience what you’ve experienced but I have felt pain. I know disappointment, and how sometimes life doesn’t seem to be going the way you thought it would go. But I also know this God is faithful, his promises are true, and his peace passes understanding.