To Write Love on Her Arms

"The stars are always there but we miss them in the dirt and clouds. We miss them in the storms. Tell them to remember hope. We have hope."
From To Write Love on Her Arms
...[w]e also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.
Romans 5:3-5

Hope is something I've not paid much attention to over the years. Honestly, I have lost my hope due to circumstances I find myself in. Some of those circumstances are of my own making--they might be called "consequences" in many cases. In other cases they are the results of someone else's choices or just life happening in ways I would prefer it not happen.

Regardless, I let go of hope because I didn't see any point in it. I honestly think it has been years since I've even thought about what I hope for. It's mostly been about focusing on what I can do to produce and being rather fatalistic when things happen ((or don't happen)). Suffice to say such an attitude doesn't produce a lot of gratefulness either.

Lately however things have been different. Just over the past few months, really, I've been feeling, well, hopeful. As in "full of hope". It's as if all the drama of the last year literally broke my heart and the softening ripened into something that produced this rather delicate flowering of hope in my life again. For the present and future of my son, for my household. For myself.

The Lord spoke to me once back in September 2007:

Do not fear, for you will not be ashamed;
do not be discouraged, for you will not suffer disgrace;
for you will forget the shame of your youth,
and the disgrace of your widowhood you will remember no more.
⁵For your Maker is your husband,
the Lord of hosts is his name;
the Holy One of Israel is your Redeemer,
the God of the whole earth he is called.
⁶For the Lord has called you
like a wife forsaken and grieved in spirit,
like the wife of a man’s youth when she is cast off,
says your God.

O afflicted one, storm-tossed, and not comforted,
I am about to set your stones in antimony,
and lay your foundations with sapphires.
¹²I will make your pinnacles of rubies,
your gates of jewels,
and all your wall of precious stones.
¹³All your children shall be taught by the Lord,
and great shall be the prosperity of your children.
¹⁴In righteousness you shall be established;
you shall be far from oppression, for you shall not fear;
and from terror, for it shall not come near you.
Isaiah 54:4-6, 11-14

I hope I can be made worthy of this treasure. Lord, forgive me for losing my hope and thank you for bringing it back to me.

Relevant Verses
Isaiah 54
Luke 1:45