When There's Hope In Front Of You.

We did it.

When this challenge began thirty-one days ago, I worried and worried.  I worried that the words would run out and my heart would run dry.  I worried that no one would read aside from my mother, love her heart.  I worried that I might be a fraud, encouraging others to reach for hope in their lives while I struggled to embrace it in my own life.

But the words never ran out and my heart certainly never quit on me.  I've been amazed and humbled by the amount of people reading and the stories of how particular posts encouraged them right when they needed it.  And as I sit quietly and search my heart, I find an abundance of hope resting in my chest.  

I still struggle.  There are still moments when the enemy likes to whisper that my situation is hopeless, that my prayers are ignored, that I am stuck and will always be stuck and I need to just give up. 

But among all of the wonderful things that I've learned this month, the most powerful lesson has been this: sometimes we lose hope so that we can go back and seek the Provider of hope.  I had lost hope because I had stopped communicating with my source of hope.  My supply had been cut off.  And when I grew desperate to have hope again, I went looking for the last place I had it.  I found hope continually when I rested in His presence.  

If we're believers, we will always trace our hope back to Jesus.  And I'm so incredibly thankful for that truth.  

As this month comes to an end, I pray that I am not the only one full of hope.  I pray that anyone who has been following this series can look back over the last thirty-one days and realize that, yes, somewhere along the line, hope decided to rise and rest in their chest as well.  And I pray that we would realize hope doesn't have to end here.  It has not been contained in this month.  It does not run out at midnight.

There is hope in front of us.  So as we end this wonderful month together, may we look forward and continue to find hope there as well.  Thank you all so very much for being my people, for encouraging and supporting this girl with crazy hair and a crazy heart.  It has meant the world to me.  You are hope-full.  Don't ever forget it.  

Enjoy this version of Danny Gokey's "Hope In Front Of Me".  

It has been my anthem as I've approached this final week of the challenge and I pray that it becomes our anthem as we leave this month behind and move forward.  

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Day Thirty One.

You can find the rest of the series here.