HOPE THAT NEVER FAILS

“Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful.”

Hebrews 10:23

When I first became a mama, I had a picture of what I thought motherhood would be. I imagined embracing our brand new baby against my chest, watching my husband hold our son in his arms for the very first time, and having a love for our child beyond what I ever could imagine. While each and every one of these dreams have come to fruition, and the love I have for our sweet boy continues to grow deeper than I could ever fathom, within hours of the arrival of our baby entering the world, I also found myself thinking “this isn’t what I thought it would be.” With every season of motherhood and each new normal that motherhood brings, I have continued to find my mind thinking that same thought, “this isn’t what I thought it would be.” While motherhood is beyond my wildest dreams, filled to the brim with joyful, magical, mountaintop moments, it’s also filled with unmet expectations, disappointments and for every mama, the realization of “this isn’t what I thought it would be.”

But, in every season of motherhood and in each new normal that motherhood brings, God remains the same. He is calling us to surrender our every disappointment and unmet expectation to the cross, and in return, promises to fill us with hope in Christ that never fails. The truth is, if we put out hope in anything other than the promises of God, we will always be left with unmet expectations, disappointments and that feeling of “this isn’t what I thought it would be.” Whether it be longing for a child to sleep through the night, waiting for a steady milk supply, yearning for a predictable nap schedule, wishing for children to get along or praying for the salvation of a child; our greatest temptation in motherhood is to misplace our hope in anything other than the Savior. And while these hopes are not inherently bad things, in fact, many of our hopes and longings are written on our hearts by God himself, hope in anything but the heart of God and His promises will always fail us. 

“Behold, the eye of the Lord is on those who fear him,

on those who hope in his steadfast love,

that he may deliver their soul from death

and keep them alive in famine.

Our soul waits for the Lord;

he is our help and our shield.

For our heart is glad in him,

because we trust in his holy name.

Let your steadfast love, O Lord, be upon us,

even as we hope in you.”

Psalm 33:18-22

Our family was recently on a walk, finally welcoming warmer weather and sunshine after a long, cold winter, and my son was simply not about being stuck in his stroller. In the past, walks have been a haven, a place of rest for my soul, a time to connect my heart back to the Lord. But this walk was anything but that, and I found my heart filled with unmet expectation and disappointment, this thing that I had once loved and cherished felt like it had been taken away. And in that moment, as I was processing this new normal of what walks had become and praying for peace in the midst of all the toddler emotions, I heard the Lord say to me, “is your hope in me?”

While hope is “a feeling of expectation and desire for a certain thing to happen,” biblical hope is “a confident expectation or assurance based on a firm foundation.”

“Biblical hope not only desires something good for the future — it expects it to happen. And it not only expects it to happen — it is confident that it will happen.”  – Desiring God

Our confident expectation is in Christ, based on the firm foundation of who He is and what He’s done, it always comes back to that promise.

Whether it be my child, the rhythms of motherhood, or the things of this world, my heart is prone to wander in misplacing hope in all of those things. As I think back over the past 18 months of raising our sweet boy, I can recount of countless times of unmet expectations and disappointments, when motherhood wasn’t quite what I thought it would be, and, I am confident that the future will hold countless more times of thinking “this isn’t what I thought it would be.” In a peaceful walk, a baby sleeping through the night, a hot shower, a long nap, a quiet car ride, an uninterrupted talk with a friend, a hot cup of coffee, a patient toddler, I’ve misplaced my hope in all of these things.

But God, who is kind and gracious in all of His ways, will always meet us in those moments of unmet expectation, in every disappointment, in all the wanderings of our hearts when we begin thinking “this isn’t what I thought it would be;” there is one sure foundation that remains. God is always and will always be faithful to expose the ways we’ve misplaced our hope and guide us to place it back in him. When motherhood is ever-changing, and the world around us is crumbling, hope in God always stays the same. That hope is our confident expectation and assurance based our firm foundation that is Jesus, and He will never fail us.

“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who by God’s power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, so that the tested genuineness of your faith—more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ. Though you have not seen him, you love him. Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory, obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls.”

1 Peter 1:3-8

So let me ask you, what are the things and where are the places you have placed your hope in motherhood?

God is calling us to surrender to a hope that never fails.

So, while all of #thisismotherhood, the magical, messy, mundane, “this isn’t what I thought it would be” moments, we have a confident expectation that is Jesus Christ, based firm foundation of who He is and what He’s done for us, and that hope changes everything. I pray that as we ask God to expose the ways we’ve misplaced our hope and guide us back to place our hope in Him, may our hearts filled with awe and wonder for the Savior, knowing that ours is the hope of eternity. As we surrender every longing of our hearts to the hope that never fails, may we hold fast to the promise of our Savior and embrace the hope that never fails.