Quotes about Hope

Wrap your heart around that the next time you go through a struggle," Clara said. "The goal of prayer is not to change God's mind

The struggle of our lives was not a sign that there was still life. If you stopped struggling, that's when you needed to be worried. The fight meant that God was helping you keep going one more day even if you didn't thik you coould make it.

Humans struggle with the underside of the tapestry, unable to see the beauty in their situation, for they cannot know how the trouble of life fits with The Plan.

When you give voice to your fear, when you expose it, as vulnerable as that makes you, you give others the same permission. You give them courage to believe there's more to life than cowering. You give hope. And my guess is, when you tackle your inner fears, you will eventually tackle what's hold you back from who God intended you to be. Your fears lead you to who you really are.

I took her hands in both of mine. "Darlin', what happened in those woods does not define the rest of your life. People might look at you and say, 'There's that woman that was taken to the cabin in Kentucky.' But God doesn't look at you that way. He says, 'There's my daughter. There's my spotless bride that my Son died for.' What happened out there does not have to follow you.

Don't quit. Don't give up. God can take the broken pieces and make them beautiful again. It's what he does best.

Lord, I don't know if Tony is in trouble or if he's upset about his job or if he's just working out at the gym. But I pray that You would draw him closer. Help him see there's no sin so great that You aren't ready to forgive. I pray You would give him hope. I pray You would allow him to see how much You love him and want him to come back to You. And give me the ability to love him well, through whatever we face.

Nobody knows that but you and God. And you don't even know the half of it. You see, he looks at our lives as a whole, not just today, tomorrow, yesterday, and next week. Not even this year and next. He's not counting your failures and your mistakes and keeping a running tab like heaven's waiter. He sees the end just as well as the beginning. He knows about the pit you're in right now.

It's not faith to say that when something painful happens, when you lose and lose again and the hurt goes so deep that you don't think you can take another breath, it's all going to work out for good. Faith doesn't explain. It doesn't even need to know or expect a happy ending. That's not what we're promised. Faith is abandoning illusions. It rests in something bigger, something beyond us and our ability. And I suspect you know that now.

God offers us hope when we surrender. When we give it over to him. He can take the sin, the struggles, all the pain we have and bring healing to our hearts. To your heart.

Good things can come from pain, he said. Not all of it is good, of course, but some of it. And the places it leads are good places, not bad. Never be afraid of the places pain will take you.

God, I wrote, I don't know if you care about my heart or my life, but if you do, I desperately need you. Or maybe you're already doing something and I'm oblivious. I don't know how this works. I'm at the end. Break through. I don't want to hurt my kids. I don't want to hurt my husband. I don't want to hurt the church. And I don't want to hurt you. Please help me.