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An Anchor of the Soul

January 2019: One of the hardest times of my life.  My level of hope-- largely non-existent.  I remember feeling like everything we knew as normal, everything we were as people, had gone away.  
Our new reality-- only bleak.

October 2019: Enter hope.  Attending a women's conference, one of the speakers pulled me backstage to discuss in depth some spiritual questions I had posed.  There he counseled and advised me to go after my dreams (something I've always wrestled with since I became a mother).  I walked away from that conversation, left the conference room and immediately called my husband.  I remember heavy, waterfall tears pouring down my face.

Hope.

When I ponder on that moment, nothing had changed.  Our situation still bleak financially, struggling spiritually, suffocating professionally, and our marriage wearing thin.  Nothing had changed except hope that things would change.  Hope that what I saw with my eyes was not in fact life, but just a moment in life.  Hope that there was still joy in the world, and even some for me.  Suddenly, the world looked so much kinder.

It was almost one year later before we were financially on top again-- yet with the hope that we would be there, everything was different.

In fact, I believe it was that hope that opened the door to faith-- moving us forward with full trust in God's ability and willingness to carry us.  11 months later, through that open door, poured a true overflowing of financial, spiritual, professional, and relational blessings.

So I sit and ponder on hope.  How can something without form or physical shape have so much power in our lives?  Real, mighty power to effect great, dramatic results on the physical world that we do see!? 

It appears to me that one of our greatest blessings is the ability to HOPE.


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