“I look to the mountains— does my help come from there? My help comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth.” David said it best in Psalms 121:1-2. Our Lord, God, is the God of all Hope. Even when we don’t see it.
The battles we have faced are many. We battle through the ugliness of death and lost relationships, addiction and financial ruin, parenting challenges, and wayward prodigals. Sometimes, we face seemingly insurmountable obstacles that threaten to suffocate the life from us at any moment. The weights are heavy, and if we aren’t careful, we begin to feel hopeless. The hopelessness can creep in with an ease that feels uncomfortable, but sadly, and all-too-familiar, we drown in the sorrow of one more disappointment, worried we may lose it if one more thing happens.
I’m writing to all the exhausted, hopeless, ready-to-throw-in-the-towel women out there. I don’t know your no-hope moment. I don’t know how long it took you to get here, how many “NOs” you had to take, or battles you had to fight. I don’t know what is pushing you to the brink of hopelessness this day. But there is one thing I do know. I know the God of hope. And that God of hope has sent me today to tell you that it is time for your faith to rise. We must stop living like women with no hope. We need a battle plan that will adequately fill us with faith and hope when those no-hope moments arise. We need an encounter with the God of all hope.
I know what it is to be hopeless.
- When I was sexually assaulted for many years, there seemed to be no hope for rescue.
- When I had 2 kids outside of marriage as a young single mom, there seemed to be no hope for a loving husband in my future.
- When my son was an angry teenager who was kicking holes in the walls & cussing me out, despite me traveling the country & writing parenting books, there certainly seemed to be no hope for godliness in his life.
- When my credit cards were maxed out, and there was no money in the checking account, and I was living in the projects, there seemed to be no hope for provision.
- When a flood took everything that I ever owned in a matter of minutes, ravaging my clothing and home and baby items…there seemed to be no hope of restoration…
- When the weight of my hundreds and hundreds of sins was too heavy to bear, there seemed to be no hope for redemption…
I don’t know what your “no hope” moment looks like today, but my deepest prayer is that your hope would be restored and that the God of all hope would fill you to OVERFLOWING.
1 Peter 5:10 says, “So after you have suffered a little while, he will restore, support, and strengthen you, and he will place you on a firm foundation.” This is new hope for those who in the room who have suffered a while. Your little while may seem like a long while right now, but….he will restore and strengthen you. Today is the day for renewed hope and rising faith in this place. It’s time to call things as if they were, not as they are.
What are the things that women have lost hope in? Where have we grown weary? Here are just a few:
- Finances. Finances are hard! No doubt. When it seems like there’s more month than money and creditors are mounting, and
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the car breaks down, it’s hard. It’s frustrating. And you may be in a season right now, where it looks bad. A job may be hard to attain today. Money is tight. Meals are being skipped. Things don’t look good. But check out what Deuteronomy 28:1-6 says:
“If you fully obey the Lord your God and carefully keep all his commands that I am giving you today, the Lord your God will set you high above all the nations of the world. You will experience all these blessings if you obey the Lord your God: Your towns and your fields will be blessed. Your children and your crops will be blessed. The offspring of your herds and flocks will be blessed. Your fruit baskets and breadboards will be blessed. Wherever you go and whatever you do, you will be blessed.”
Make no mistake. God’s word says He will supply all our needs. When we seek God’s Kingdom first, all things will be added. Seek His will for your life. Honor Him with your firstfruits through the tithe. Live holy and pure lives. Live unapologetically unoffended by the battles that you continually face. Serve His people and His church. He will provide. Sometimes his provision will look like a friend inviting you over for a meal or offering you a couch to sleep on when you just lost your home. Sometimes his provision looks different than what we hoped or imagined, but make no mistake, its provision, nonetheless. And there are lessons in the providing.
Learn to be faithful with the fishes and loaves in your hand. Tithe on the $10, so you can be free to tithe on the $10,000. Give the widow’s mite freely. Now, let me be clear, I’m not suggesting that God is your magic genie that you rub and make demands on, once you throw your $10 bill in the offering plate. What I am saying is your God will rain manna from Heaven in unexpected ways. He will meet your needs.
2. Future. Sometimes, because of the weights we’ve carried and the disappointments that we’ve experienced, we can lose hope in our futures. Jeremiah 29:11-12 says, “For I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord. They are plans for good and not disaster, to give you a future and a hope. In those days, when you pray, I will listen.” You don’t have to figure it all out. Many of you have worried yourselves literally sick. God isn’t sitting in Heaven, scratching His head, debating on his plans for your life. He says, “I know the plans.” He isn’t trying to figure out the plans! He’s got it figured out.
Philippians 4:6-7 needs to be an anthem for which you live your life when you are losing hope. “Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for what he has done. Then you will experience God’s peace, which exceeds anything we can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ.”
Peace is the fertile soil on which your faith can grow. Chaos breeds roots of bitterness and offense and confusion. But the peace of God will plant you firmly in soil that will allow you to grow like a great oak, unwavering in your faith, despite the storms of life.
3. Families. Women, we are makers of the world go-round. We are the hands that rock the cradle. We are the chauffeurs and counselors and dishwashers extraordinaire. We are the kissers of all boo-boos. And we are exhausted from trying to fix everybody. When we offer help to a sister, a child, a parent, and they don’t take it, we get frustrated. When a family member messes up again, we get disappointed. They mess up again. We become exhausted, trying to be everything for our families. We are spending so much time trying to fix people. But let me give you some freedom….we are not the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is the “fixer.” We lose hope when we are in charge of the fixing, but truthfully, we can’t fix anything. It is only in our weakness that God is made strong. If we fix every part of our children’s lives, how do they learn to lean on a good God?
Jesus tells us in Matthew 11:30 that his yoke is easy and burden is light. Why do we keep trying to carry the load? We can’t.
Psalms 27:13 says, “I would have despaired unless I had believed that I would see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.” This is the God of all hope that we know!
Some of you just need to be reminded today that your God is a mountain-moving Savior. He is a way-maker, a hope-giver. He is an earth-shaking, enemy-scattering God. He owns the cattle on a thousand hills. He says he puts the lonely in families. He makes a river in the dry wasteland. He upholds you with His victorious right hand. He has created you to be the head and not the tail, a city on a hill, a light in a dark world. He did not create you to clamor in a corner like a woman with no hope. It’s time for the women of God to let hope arise, to let their faith arise, to begin to pray like you believe He can do it.
Your God isn’t fretting about your singleness, your credit card, or your health. He is resting comfortably on the throne, making a way where there seems to be none.
To the woman who reads, who has lost all hope, God has sent me to tell you it’s not over. Calvary is on the way. Your sisters in Christ stand with you. And just like an exhausted Moses who had no more left to give, your sisters in Christ stand with you today, like Aaron, ready to hold up your weary arms, that you may be victorious in the battle.
Be reminded that the God of all hope promises you deep, spiritual rest. Rest in knowing that he has you in the palm of his hand, working things out for your good, even when you don’t know how, when, or why. He is always good.
“So there is a special rest still waiting for the people of God. For all who have entered into God’s rest have rested from their labors, just as God did after creating the world. So let us do our best to enter that rest.” -Hebrews 4: 9-11
The Life of a Single Mom is a national, faith-based, nonprofit that exists to see that no single mom walks alone. To date, the organization has worked with hundreds of churches to start a single mom’s support group in cities throughout the U.S. and beyond, as well as having served hundreds of thousands of single mothers with a variety of programs. Offering a large array of books, curriculum, training materials, online instructional videos, podcasts, newsletters, life skills education, and more, TLSM is one of the largest single mom organizations in the U.S. The robust selection of single mom programs focus on empowering single moms to grow spiritually, emotionally, financially, and parentally through Single Mom University, Single Moms Across America, the National TLSM Single Moms Conference, boot camps, and a variety of other programs. For more information, visit www.thelifeofasinglemom.com.
