hope

The World Is Dark, but We Know the Light

Finding Light in a Dark World
Photo by Dmitry Ratushny on Unsplash

 This has been a divisive year. Lines have been drawn and ugliness has risen to the surface in many places. Sometimes the darkness feels all too strong.

Jesus understands that kind of world.

When he entered it, the Jewish people had endured 400 years of silence from God. They lived under the oppressive rule of Rome. Soldiers walked the streets. Riots were not uncommon. Even within Judaism, there was division, as four sects fought for control. Shortly after he was born, Jesus and his family were forced to flee to a new country to avoid Herod’s massacre of children under 2. Dark times, indeed.

The Jews wanted someone to take away the darkness. They wanted a Savior, but their idea of how they would be saved and from what was misguided. Jesus didn’t come as a military or political leader. He didn’t free them from Rome. He wasn’t about conforming governments to his will. He didn’t erase dividing lines between people. He didn’t make everything easy, or pave a straight, conflict free path for us. He didn’t eradicate evil. Instead, he shone a light into it.

He was light in the darkness.

That light sets hearts free. He stepped into the darkness to make room for joy, peace, hope, mercy and grace. His light was life and love, come into the world, to transform us, rather than transforming our worlds to suit us.

We are not called to look at the darkness and be afraid. We are not meant to see it and complain and argue about what it all means. We don’t shake our heads and give up. We don’t wring our hands in despair.

We turn on the light.

We move into the world as people who know joy, peace, hope, grace, mercy, and above all, love. This is what we are about. We are about shining his light brighter and brighter. So this Christmas season, how can we remember to shine his light in the world?

We shine the light of hope. Our hope is in a person, not an outcome. We do not hope in government. We do not hope in society conforming to our standards. We hope in what he can do. We hope in what will be.

We shine the light of peace. Peace is not merely an emotion, but a state of reconciliation brought about through him. So where there is division and unrest, we speak peace. In the midst of chaos, we breathe peace.

We shine the light of joy. He gives us joy beyond circumstances, the joy of knowing him and being loved by him. That joy ought to show on our faces, in our spirits, in how we move through this world.

We shine the light of mercy and grace. Jesus came for the outcast, the downtrodden, the poor, weak and weary. We declare that the gospel is for the ragamuffin, for those who are not too proud to receive what they need. That starts with recognizing we are counted among the needy.

We shine the light of love. Most of all, the light that shines in the darkness declares that love overcomes. It overcomes the darkness in our hearts and opens the door for us to receive all that he offers us. Christmas is God’s shout of love to the world, a shout that makes the darkness flee. Let’s simmer in this reality long enough for it to show up in our actions, in our words.

Yes, the world is dark, but we know the light.

This Christmas, let’s seek ways to make the light brighter in what we say, how we treat others, how we make room for them, where we look for life. Let us be people who reflect the light to a dark world.

“for he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the son he loves.” Colossians 1:13

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Panning for Gold: What to Do When Gratitude Is Hard

Panning for Gold
Photo by Sharon McCutcheon on Unsplash

 

This is the month of the year when we are reminded to be thankful. Pinterest is cluttered with suggestions for ways to count our blessings. At work one year, someone put up a thankfulness tree, and a sign inviting others to write on a leaf and add to it. Among the turkey and pilgrim decorations are plates and napkins and signs bearing the word, “Thanks.” But the fact is, sometimes, it’s hard to feel thankful.

Sometimes we have seasons when the blessings are hard to see. The job is stressful, and you wonder if it’s even where you belong. Your kids are struggling in school. The loneliness lingers, or your marriage feels old and empty. Depression is a cloud you can’t shake. The test is positive, or negative. Sometimes the hard is so overwhelming the thought of looking for the good feels beyond our reach.

At times like that, when we don’t feel grateful, what do we do?

We pan for gold.

Now I’ve never actually panned for gold, but I imagine that it is hard work. Time-consuming. It requires great focus and a trained eye to look for the smallest bits of gold in the mud. All your energy goes into finding that precious metal. Those willing to look harder found more.

So when I’m in a season where it doesn’t feel like the gold nuggets are right there for the taking, I imagine myself as a gold miner (side note: I HATE the word nugget. Hate. It.). I take more time to look a little harder, sift my life around a little more, asking where I do see Him at work. I look for the smallest blessings. Sometimes I start with, “I am alive today.”

And then I thank Him for them. I thank Him for food, clothes, shelter, health and all that I take for granted every day. It’s good to start there.

Here’s the reality: there’s always gold.

It might only show up in little flakes and specks. But when we look, we see it is there in abundance. We might not experience the big nuggets of victory, but we can claim the gold dust of everyday grace. Click To Tweet It’s breath in our lungs, feet to move us, hands to work, eyes to see. We see salvation, grace, life, and His love and presence. It’s all that does not leave us even in the darkest moments.

The more we pan for gold, the better we become at finding it. We see gold in a kind word, a safe drive, a quiet moment. It’s found in sunrises, fresh air, and every day we get to start again.

We are not asked to give thanks for every circumstance but in every circumstance. Whatever the season brings, there’s gold in them there hills. We can be grateful people in the midst of trial, heartache, pain.

Seek out the evidence of goodness mixed in with the dirt of hardship. Search for the reminders that we are never forsaken, even when the road is rough. His blessings carry us. Pan for gold, friends. Our lives are rich.

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The Power of Asking What If

The Power of Asking "What If?"
Photo by Emily Morter on Unsplash

I’ve always thought it was wrong to focus on the “what if’s” in life. It seems like a recipe for anxiety to imagine all that could go wrong, all that could be hiding in the darkness of “what if.” We could spend a lot of unnecessary energy trying to manage the “what if” scenarios.

But I’ve found that if I just try to ignore the “what if’s,” they don’t go away. They linger in my mind as nebulous possibilities with the power to hold back my hand from being brave. They hide in the darkness just out of sight, allowing the potential threat to grow. I’ve been discovering that there’s a lot of power to demolish lies and face the fears that grip us when we let ourselves get curious about the “what if” questions.

It started for me like this: One night this spring, as I was wrestling with my fear of failure (one of my go-to fears), I felt like God prompted me to ask, “What if you do fail?”

Which, honestly, felt like kind of a mean question. God, you’re supposed to tell me I won’t fail. You’re supposed to tell me everything will be fine.

But the truth is, it might not be. I will acknowledge that failure is a possibility, as much as I would like it not to be.

So I asked the question, “What if I fail? What’s the worst that could happen?”

If I fail, people might see. They might be disappointed. They might turn away. I might feel like an idiot (oh please, anything but that. Seriously).

“OK, well, what if they do see? What if they are disappointed? Will they really think differently of you? Probably not. They’ll probably be glad to see that you’re human. Does that define your value? No, it does not. Are you still loved? Oh yes, so very, very much. And not just by God, but most likely by those same people who have seen you fail.”

Asking myself these worst case scenario questions was not an attempt to build up my defenses to protect from the pain of experiencing them. Instead, it helped me see where I am trying to rest in others for life and love. As I overlaid God’s grace and truth on it, I realize I would survive a “what if.” Would it be painful? Maybe. Probably. But would he walk with me through it? Yes. And I have hope that I would come out better on the other side. More human. Less self-protective. Braver. More restful.

So much energy in life is expended in avoiding the “what ifs.”We try to ward off the evil, the painful, the uncomfortable, instead of trusting that a) God will walk with us through it and b) however hard it is, God can redeem.

Since then, I’ve been making a more regular practice of facing the “what ifs” head on. Confronting them is like pulling back the curtain on the Wizard of Oz and finding he’s not nearly as imposing as he’s making himself out to be. In fact, he might even be able to teach me something about what it is I want, what I fear, and how to look to God for provision and protection instead of to myself.

So ask the “what ifs.” What if I fail? What if I don’t get this job? What if things don’t turn out the way I hope? What if this situation never changes? What if my needs aren’t met? What if I don’t know what to do? What if I make a mistake? What if people see it happen?

Ask them not to guard from what could happen (or isn’t happening), but to remind yourself that whatever comes, he’s going to walk with you through it. He will help you see what is true about him, you, and others. Each time we do, we gain more courage to step with faith into the unknown.

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Are You Looking for God in the Right Places?

Looking for God in the Right Places
Photo by Chase Clark on Unsplash

One morning last week my husband told me there was a hawk in the backyard. I glanced out the kitchen window and observed nothing. Later, he came in again and asked, “Did you see the hawk?”

“No,” I replied, assuming it flew away.

“It’s still there. It’s been there all morning.”

I looked out again, scanning the trees. No hawk. Maybe he was blending in with the trees. Erik led me upstairs to our 2nd floor deck and told me to look with binoculars. “Ah,” I thought, “it’s probably way back in the trees and that’s why I couldn’t see it.”

Nope. That hawk was right in the middle of our backyard, pecking away at bugs in the grass. Turns out I couldn’t see it because I wasn’t looking in the right place. I wasn’t looking hard enough.

There’s so much we miss if we aren’t looking for it.

That hawk, on the other hand, wasn’t missing a thing. Between pecks, he hopped up on the soccer goal and stayed alert, scanning the ground. Every minute or so he jumped down with lightning speed and pulled up a frog or a worm. He was focused, and it served him well.

I want to be like that hawk. I don’t want to miss what God is doing because I’m not looking for it. I don’t want to hold so tightly to what I believe his goodness should look like that I miss his actual blessings. I don’t want to be someone who loses hope, or doesn’t expect God to work, simply because he isn’t conforming to my plans.

Last spring, I spoke with a good friend about how easy it is for me to do this though. I have been in a long season of loneliness, brought on by a number of factors mostly beyond my control. While I have cried out to God to ease this pain, it seems he has been
silent on the issue.

But when I stop and look harder, I see ways that God is providing relationships for me. My life may not look like an episode of Friends (and let’s face it-whose does??), but I have people. Yes, it’s hard to grab the quality time I would love to have with them, but I am thankful for the moments God does give me. It might be a last minute serendipitous lunch with a friend, an unexpected phone call, a canceled appointment that gives me sudden time with someone else. It’s not so much that I am alone-I am simply so focused on what I think a lack of loneliness looks like that I miss what he is giving me.

That hawk, it appears, has made our backyard his home. He’s learned there’s life here for him, and where to look for it. He trusts that this place will provide for him.

You and I, we know where to look.

Life is here, being given to us day after day. He is with us, giving us what we need. Sometimes it’s in ways we wouldn’t expect, so we miss it. Let’s pry our hands from the preconceived notions we have of how life should be so we can grab hold of what he is offering. He’s at work. We just have to search in the right places. 

“You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all of your heart.” Jer. 29:13

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Peace and Hope Amidst the Storm

Peace and Hope Amidst the Storm

For the last 24 hours, my phone has been filled with tweets about the coming hurricane in Florida. My friends and I are checking with each other to see if we’re prepared. One of them left this morning for a trip, worried about the family she’s leaving behind. Another has sent her kids to safety further north. I breathed a sigh of relief to hear that a childhood friend in Haiti is safe. We don’t know what to expect here, but we know it is coming.

It’s been a week of storms. Our daughter tried out for a developmental soccer program, one for which she’s been intentionally preparing these last few months. No one’s got more grit than this girl to press toward what she wants, yet she didn’t make the cut.

A good friend is experiencing the effects of past wounds marring a current relationship. She did what she thought was wise to avoid a storm, but it has come anyway. Another finds herself blocked in her work by factors out of her control and her faith is being tested as never before. I read in my newsfeed about unexpected divorce, the tragedy of a miscarriage, a father leaving a family far too soon.

We spent a day of prayer yesterday as a ministry, and heard reports from around the world of people persecuted for their beliefs. We spoke of the Pulse shooting, of personal struggles to make ends meet, and of fears for safety as the world becomes an increasingly more dangerous place for many.

I consider the storm swirling around our country. We watch and wonder what direction it will turn with the turbulent presidential election looming on the horizon. It all feels so huge, so beyond our control.

The storms, they just keep coming. 

With every story, my heart sinks. How much can we bear? My arms are not wide enough to encompass these people I love, to shelter them from all the storms in the world. There is so much trouble. So much heartache. So much that threatens to take away life as we know it, as we want it to be. Some of it is our own making, but some of it is just life in a fallen world.

So we feel helpless. Frightened. Discouraged. Distraught. Disappointed. Angry. This isn’t the way it was supposed to be. We want life without storms. We want sunny days and blue skies and happiness. When we don’t have it, we are so tempted to doubt his goodness and purposes.

But he never promised us life without storms. Jesus said to his disciples just before he died, “I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”

So herein lies our hope, friends. The storms are unavoidable. But we can take heart, because whatever comes, he has overcome the worst of it. Click To Tweet

Now that doesn’t mean our trampoline isn’t going to end up in our trees. Or the relationship will be mended. The cancer will go away. The child will come home.

But it does mean that we do not respond as the world does. Yes, we feel fear and sadness. But then we hope. We hope because we know that we have life beyond all this. We hope because we know that no matter what this world takes from us, it cannot take away our peace, our joy, or our salvation.

It can’t take us away from Jesus.

So in the storm, may we be people who talk about where our hope is. Our hope is in the one who is greater than the storms. He commands them, quiets them, and walks with us through them. He is our lifeboat, our anchor, our refuge. And at the end of the day, even if the storm overwhelms us, we still have him.

As one of our staff said yesterday, “When we have nothing and we have Jesus, we have everything.” Let’s rest in this today.

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Having Hope in a New Season

It’s September. The pumpkin spice lattes are back, and the Halloween candy is out, which is how I know it’s autumn (Orlando weather doesn’t really give me any clues). Can I just point out that if you’re buying Halloween candy now, you’re either a great planner AND highly disciplined, or let’s face it-it’s never going to last until October 31. Just sayin’.

It’s exciting to see the fall décor, the warm colors of sweaters and pants hanging on the racks, the everything scented cinnamon. Bring on the new season.

New seasons bring exciting new possibilities, but they also bring the unknown. They bring “I’m not sure how to do this” and “what will happen?” and most of, “will this be good?”

It’s been several years now since we moved back to the U.S. from 13 years overseas. We returned to many familiars, but also so many unknowns. Overseas, we were deeply known, deeply rooted, deeply seen. Here, we had yet to see how God would provide in similar ways.

Now, I scroll through my text messages and I see name after name of people I did not know then. I have my favorite places, my favorite things (the library delivers, friends. To. My. House).

I, who dread meet and greets, linger after church because there are so many people I love and want to see. Our roots are not as deep as they were in the last season, but they are sinking. We are claiming ground here.

And He saw it all before it ever came to be.

A year or so into our time in Singapore years ago, God gave me this same kind of awareness. I imagined having this kind of conversation with Him when I was hesitant to leave our home and move there,

“Oh but Gina, you’re going to meet Wendy, and Krisi, and Fiona, and so many others. You’re going to have great memories with your kids at the wobbly train park and the zoo and the children’s library. They’re going to talk for years about the Nutella waffles you get at the market. It’s going to be so good!”

Friend, maybe you are in a new season that looms much larger than new latte flavors and décor.

Maybe it’s a new location, a new stage of life, a new role. You can’t see much through the fog right now. You’re wondering if it’s going to be good, if you’ll be known, if you’ll find your place. Remember this:

Every season that is unknown to you is known to God.

God’s got good in store for you. He has people for you. He has prepared moments of laughter and joy. There will be valleys and mountains of growth. Just like I told my kids when we first moved here, “You might just meet your new best friend.”

You might be entering a season of amazing blessing, or it might be your greatest place of transformation. Either way, He knows it. He’s got you.

Each year back, we celebrate another season of life here. We pile the Ebenezer stones and claim the goodness of God in this season He’s given us. We look back and see all that He knew He was going to give us here.

It’s a new season. There’s good to come. He goes ahead, preparing it for you.

“I know what I’m doing. I have it all planned out—plans to take care of you, not abandon you, plans to give you the future you hope for.” –Jeremiah 29:11 The Message

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When Fear Is a Dictator

When Fear Is a Dictator

Confession: I have been afraid to write.

This is problematic, as I am obviously a blogger. I also have a mostly written book I sincerely hope to finish and have published.

This fear has been growing throughout the last year. It gnaws at me when I see my computer out of the corner of my eye. It pokes at me when I see other people tweeting links to wonderful posts others have written. It shuts down my thoughts. It keeps my fingers still.

It’s a fear that it won’t be enough. People won’t like what I write. It won’t draw the audience I hope it will. It will sit out there in the open like a sad, unpicked girl at a dance, while the other posts are grabbed by the hand and thrown from partner to partner.

Oh how I hate this fear. I hate the grip it has on my soul. I hate the way fear turns my eyes from God and onto me. I hate that it is a little dictator, barking at me to stay silent, to give up, to step out of the arena because if I can’t be as great as I hope I could be, then I should quit. It says it just isn’t worth it.

I’ve had enough of my little dictator.

I recently took a sabbatical from work, a time when I thought I would write more. Instead, I found God calling me first to wrestle this fear to the ground and give it a good dose of truth. It’s time to take these thoughts captive and make them obedient to Christ.

The truth is that my fear means my eyes are far too much on me. Fear makes me focus on finding my own glory, not His. Fear tells me to hustle for my worth. It demands I build a kingdom for myself, and at the same time tells me I’ll never be able to do it.

Fear loves to dictate the what, the how, the when, the how much, of our lives. It tells us to shut up. It demands that we stop trying. It tells us to shrink back and hang in the shadows of the brave places God calls us to live.

Fear whispers to us, as we stand on the edge of faith, of all that could go wrong. It takes our eyes off God and turns them to the what if’s, and maybe’s, and you’d better not’s, and what will people think’s.

It silences our voices and eventually our hearts.

So this morning I am turning my eyes back to Him.

I read today in Minding Your Emotions, “We handle fear by going from self-made to God-made, from self-important to God-honoring, from self-satisfied to God-soaked, from self-preoccupied to God-dazzled.”

There it is – I go from me to Him. I tell fear the truth that this is God’s kingdom, not mine. I tell it that I don’t have to make a kingdom for myself because this is the place where I’m already valued and free. I tell it that I’m going to step out in faith anyway because it’s not about my glory after all – it’s about His.

He strips fear of its power over us.

I’m asking Him to not let fear be my dictator, but to let His Spirit be my guide.

How is fear your dictator?

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Why Christmas Reminds Me to Hope in God

Why Christmas Reminds Me to Hope in God

I hate waiting. That’s why I have Amazon Prime.

‘Tis the season of waiting. We wait in lines, for packages to arrive, for family, friends, parties, planes.

In the Bible, the word wait is often translated hope. They are intertwined. We must wait for the objects of our hope.

Hope feels deeper. We don’t just hope for that gift we want for Christmas. We hope for marriage, children, jobs, for needs satisfied.

Wrapped up in our hope is expectation. We have ideas of how we want our hopes realized. And when we are asking God to step into our hope and meet it, we put those expectations on Him.

What does it look like to hope in God? We place our fragile hopes in His hands, but too often the waiting is long, the expectations unmet. We fear disappointment. Sometimes it’s easier not to hope.

The Israelites knew a little about waiting. They waited in slavery, in exile, for the Promised Land, for a Messiah. In their waiting, they hoped. Their expectations grew. They longed for a leader, a savior, one who would protect them from their enemies and carry them to victory. For hundreds of years, they waited and hoped and expected rescue.

And then Jesus came, and He wasn’t anything they expected. But when I look at His birth, I’m reminded why God is worthy of our hope. In Christmas I see that:

God keeps His promises

Jesus fulfilled every prophecy about the Messiah. “For no matter how many promises God has made, they are “Yes” in Christ. And so through him, the “Amen” is spoken by us to the glory of God.” 2 Corinthians 1:20

He has promised us so much – that He will never leave us, He will work all things for good, He will give us abundant life. We can hang our hope on His promises.

He meets our deepest needs

Four men lowered their paralyzed friend through a roof, but instead of healing his body, Jesus forgave his sins (and then healed him). The Israelites thought they needed a leader; God knew they needed a redeemer. We think we know what we want, but God wants to give us what we may not even know we need. Christ’s birth reminds me that not only does He knows my needs, He can also meet them.

His ways are not our ways

The Israelites probably would not have chosen an unwed, teenage mother or a poor carpenter to parent the ruler of the universe, or have made Him a Nazarene. So many of the chapters of my life I would not have written the way God did, but looking back, they are so good. We stumble the most when we hold too tightly to the ways we think God should answer our prayers. Like the Jewish people, we might miss His answers entirely.

He loves us more than life

One of my favorite songs a few years ago was “Touch the Sky,” by Hillsong United. It says, “You traded heaven to have me again.” Christmas tells me to put my hope in Him because of this: He would do anything, give up everything, just to have me.

It might not happen now, or when we expect, but God is always working good on our behalf, meeting our deepest needs, keeping His promises out of his deep love for us. He is worthy of our hope.

This is the season of Advent, which means expectant waiting. So we wait quietly, attentively, continually, dependently. We put our hope not in an outcome, but in a Person.

 

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Hope in a Broken World

Hope in a Broken World
Photo by Jan Tinneberg on Unsplash

 

A friend’s father loses his battle with cancer. News of an impending divorce. The unexpected death of a young man. Abusive words spoken and then rationalized as biblical. One after another, over the span of a week.

Broken.

We live in a broken world.

I desperately don’t want it to be. I want to have a world where fathers don’t die so young, and people keep loving one another, and children stay with us and people bless and don’t curse. I want families intact and relationships strong. I want safe, trusted, constant, faithful.

But we live in a broken world.

So I take this reality to God and say, “What do I do? How do I pray? How do I live in this?”

And He reminds me that he promises to be close to the brokenhearted and to heal them and bind them up. He tells me that He weeps with us and endures with us and walks the hard roads with us, that His compassion is endless and overflowing and His mercy starts all over again every morning. He tells me to trust in this.

So I say, “Come, Lord Jesus.” Come into our brokenness. Come and be all that you promised to be so we have a solid place to stand in it.

We live in brokenness but we are not without hope.

My hope is not that the world will stop being broken, but that we will meet the lover of broken hearts in the midst of it. We will experience Him healing and binding us, bringing beauty from ashes, redeeming the darkness. We will cling to the hope that one day there will be no more brokenness, and every tear will be wiped away. All will be right.

So we keep walking through the brokenness, not in defeat but in hope. Hope in the one who is close to the brokenhearted.

“Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you in turmoil within me? Hope in God; for I shall again praise him, my salvation and my God.”  Psalm 43:5

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Hopes for My Daughter On Turning 13

Hopes for My Daughter On Turning 13

Ok, you finally made it. 13. I have to confess, it’s felt like you’re a teenager for awhile now. You have your emotional ups and downs, and you’re mature beyond your years. That’s my polite way of saying sometimes, girl, you’re a handful. But, I am quick to remind myself that you are far from the terror I was at 13. I wish that on no one.

But whatever handful you are, it’s what you are supposed to be. This is a tough time, and I’m going to tell you that it’s going to get rockier before it gets better. Being a teenager is turbulent. I remember.

I hope it goes well for you. I hope so much. I hope that you navigate these years with confidence, not in yourself, but in who God has made you to be. You are beautifully and wonderfully made. I know you doubt that sometimes, when you look at the widow’s peak you wish I hadn’t given you, or your drive for perfection that frustrates you. But trust me – it’s ALL good. I hope you never let someone else’s words or looks cause you to doubt that truth.

I hope, as you grow and mature, you never lose your childlikeness. It’s different than being childish. Childlike means you stay open, humble, willing to learn, ok with the fact that you’re not there yet, willing to let others help you in your weak places. Jesus
said the kingdom belongs to those people.

I hope, as you grow, that you are gentle with yourself. You’re going to make mistakes. You won’t know what you’re doing. You will have ups and downs and disappointments and regrets, but it’s all part of the process. This is how we learn, so I hope you can smile at the fumbles and say, “Now I know!” and move on with compassion and grace.

I hope you value yourself in relationships. I hope you continue to choose to spend time with people who build you up, who love you as you are, and with whom you can stand your ground. I hope you always believe that you are worth pursuing. I hope you never think you have to change to make yourself likable or attractive to anyone.

I hope you know how normal all this is. I know some days you’ll feel like you could conquer the world, and other days you’ll be shaking in your boots. Sometimes you’ll think I’m the smartest, best mom ever, and other days you’ll think I’m a idiot. Your
emotions will run wild at times and cause you to think and do things that surprise you. I hope you take it all in stride. (I hope I do too!)

I hope you keep following your dreams. They are good dreams. I hope they become clearer and more tangible, but at the same time, I hope they never take the place of God in your heart. I hope you can hold them open to Him and trust that He will do with them what is best for you.

I hope you cling to Jesus. If there is anything I hope for you, it is this. I hope that as you grow, you see more and more how desperately you need Him, and how He is more than sufficient for everything you need. I hope you love Him with everything you have. I hope you taste and see that He is so very good. I hope this relationship guides you and brings you joy.

I hope in Him for you, kiddo. He has great plans for you. Welcome to 13.

Related:

Promises to My Children

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Continue ReadingHopes for My Daughter On Turning 13

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