Get Your Hopes Up

For the past week I have been waking up almost every morning with Proverbs 13:12 on my heart. “Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but when the desire comes it is a tree of life.” I have been walking through my days, and this scripture seems to stir up inside of me, almost like someone is yelling at me, telling me to get my hopes up. It has been reminding me that the desires of my heart, the things that God has promised me, will come in due season, and when they come, they will produce life, not just for me but for the benefit of others as well.

 This all started a couple of weeks ago. I was driving down the road processing some things, and my heart started aching. If I could give you a visual for what it felt like- picture a heart being squeezed tightly with tears pouring out of it. My heart was crying for what used to be and what hasn’t yet come. My heart was begging for some sort of shift to take place. I truly felt heart sick and hopeless. Not in a, “Oh God, why? Woe is me!” More like, “God, this can’t be as good as it gets. I know the desires You’ve put inside of me and the promises You’ve spoken, did You forget?” I KNOW that He hasn’t, but in the art of being completely transparent with you, that’s how I was feeling. I allowed myself to process this with the Lord, I allowed myself to cry actual tears, but then started reminding myself, God is GOOD! His mercies are new every morning! All of His promises are yes and amen! He is faithful. His word never returns void. I began repeating God’s words over myself, and felt the hope begin to arise within me.

I know that things may be ugly right now or maybe just a little foggy, but if it’s not good, it’s not over, right? It’s like, I assume, when a woman is in labor and she’s getting ready to give the final few pushes. There might be pain, there might be screaming and crying, there might even be fear and doubt, but just a few more pushes and life’s most beautiful gift will appear. I feel like that is where I, and many of you, are at currently. We are pregnant with purpose and are about to give birth to something we can’t even imagine, but once it’s here, life will never be the same- it will be even more beautiful.

 So, I write to you this week with a simple message: Don’t allow what you haven’t seen come to pass yet cause your heart to be sick. Be expectant that the fulfillment of these desires will bring life. It will bring life for you, and for generations to come! GET YOUR HOPES UP!

I’m attaching a link to a beautiful testimony that brings this scripture to life. I hope it stirs up hope in you as it did for me. https://youtu.be/n17JeW_OOmg