Hope-Full

My mom emailed me today with a great message of hope, and I thought I'd share some with you! First of all, the title to the email was "FW:Encouragement For Your Future". Normally it's easy to shun off many forwarded messages, but I was delightfully surprised to see some nice Biblical quotes and in reading I realized that much of this content is relevant to me and most likely whoever reads my blogs! You can check the entire message by clicking on the title to this link, which will take you to a Dayspring webpage. The message has some quotes on Hope, Joy, Courage, Patience, Joy, Confidence, Courage, and Love, and I recommend it. I want to elaborate more on the message of hope, though.

In these times we are in, things are economically tough across the board. I had a conversation with one of my co-workers, and I was telling her a bit about me in a nutshell as an introduction. Every time I do this, I am reminded of how good things were (economically) for myself and my wife in 2007, hands-down our best financial year (and the year we got married!). Add a flood and the fact that she can't work overtime, etc, and we are "hurtin' for certain". I feel blessed, though, because there are many others that are much worse off, and I prefer to count my blessings. Nonetheless, I am aware of our nation's situation as a whole, and we are all reminded as we see more and more regarding people seeking jobs, people being evicted and foreclosed who can be included in the "newly homeless" category, and people in other unfortunate circumstances. I pray for all of us to see the pinhole of light that is ahead, and to know that there will be more prosperous times soon! We must believe this, even if we can't see it. We must push on and be patient, knowing there are better times coming! One of the verses of hope from the forward my mom gave me led me to the book of Romans, and I want to share some verses with you below. Thanks for reading everyone!

"I consider that what we suffer at this present time cannot be compared at all with the glory that is going to be revealed to us." -Romans 8:18

"For it was by hope that we were saved; but if we see what we hope for, then it is not really hope. For who hopes for something he sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience." -Romans 8:24-25

"We know that in all things God works for good with those who love him, those whom he has called according to his purpose." Romans 8:28