Why do you linger here when there is no hope?

There is still hope.

Amid all the frantic-ness and commercialism that seem to come with the holiday season, there is still something that stands out to me about this time of the year.

We were talking in my small group the other night about hope and how we tend to give up so easily in our unbelief. It’s the whole “where do you place your trust in” thing. Do you place it in circumstances, in other people, in yourself or do you honestly instead place it in God?

Now, I know (if you’re even reading down this far) there are several readers of my blog who don’t share my faith, and that’s fine. Thanks for sticking around even if you don’t agree with me. This post may not speak towards you but you are more than welcomed to keep reading and share your thoughts.

Hope can be dulled by unbelief. I know there have been MANY times in my life where I just feel like I don’t have any more hope…in anything. It’s mainly because I feel like I’ve been let down too many times so why even try to get my hopes up because they are just going to come crashing down. I would blame God for the way people acted because if He was in control of the situation why would he allow others to hurt me? Why would He just stand there and let me be hurt? Did He enjoy watching me suffer? Was it all just a learning process?

I’ve gone through many hard times in my life. Some brought on by my own actions, others through no fault of my own. I know that there are many people who have had it WAY worse than me and my sufferings are nothing in comparison. But I still will admit that I’ve been through a lot of hurt. And it’s tough. It is very painful when you feel like you have to deal with it alone, when you try to reach out and others fail you.

This time of year reminds me very much of how single I am. But at the same time, the Christmas season however reminds me though that no matter how much hurt there is, no matter how much pain (either physical or emotional) I go through, I shouldn’t give up.

But when God makes a promise, He keeps it. In fact, God keeps both sides of the promise. (http://shereadstruth.com/2014/12/01/gods-promises-abram/)

Hope. We see it all through Scripture. But it’s not hope in ourselves or what we can do—it’s hope in the promises of the One who never lets us down. (http://shereadstruth.com/2014/12/02/christs-birth-prophesied/)

My prayer for this Christmas season is to remember what the true meaning of this holiday is to me. That God sent his son down in the lowliest of all situations for us, for me. Because He loved us, He loved me. That this is the greatest gift anyone could ever do for me. So that whenever I feel like I have no hope, when I feel abandoned, when I feel forgotten, when I have been let down, that I DO still have hope.

“I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief!” (Mark 9:24b)

I don’t listen too much to my local Christian radio station because I feel like the music they play is too much geared towards the “family safe kid friendly” spiel. I feel that they limit themselves by only playing this type of music and it all starts sounding the same. Plus I thought they had switched over to Christmas music 24/7 and while I’m perfectly fine with this, yesterday I was not in the mood. I was driving to work and I was feeling pretty down and started crying. Then on a whim, I switched over to the Christian radio station and this song came on and it was exactly what I needed to hear.

Nice timing God. Thanks.