Not many of us experience “a promise made, a promise kept” with other people. But the good thing is that we can count on God to keep every promise He has made.
God has made many promises to you and He will do what He said He would do. Find His promise about your situation in His Word. Expect Him to fulfill it!
Speak this Word to yourself throughout the day– by doing so, you’ll encourage yourself and maintain clarity about His will for you.
I subscribe to a number of emailed newsletters that help me become a better author, a better business woman, and especially, a better person. I recently received one from life coach, Valorie Burton. In it, she shared exciting and encouraging news—along with her struggles of conceiving over the age of 40 and a miscarriage. This is her personal story of how her dream to become a mommy has come true. I share it, with her permission, because I think it will encourage you to not give up hope, even if adoption is is not the path to parenthood that you choose.
My lifelong dream has come true. Our lives have changed dramatically and beautifully in the last month. Since marrying my husband in 2013, I’ve been a “bonus” mom to two sweet, energetic, loving little girls. And now, God has seen fit to expand our family with a beautiful baby boy we’ve been privileged to adopt! That’s right. I’ve become a mommy.
If you’ve read my books or followed me for a while, you know this has been a dream deferred, but I have never given up on the vision I’ve sensed deep in my spirit for marriage and family. At times, I have felt frustrated, helpless, and discouraged, but I refused to give up hope. I could not. To give up hope would be to give up on God. As I stand in the midst of this vision of love that has unfolded, I feel led to share my lessons learned so I can encourage you to persevere towards your own vision – whatever that vision might be:
A Call to Action for you: Don’t give up on God (Genesis 18:14). Stay connected to Him through His promises found in His Word. Hear His quiet voice within you giving you wisdom about how to proceed along your path. You can find more encouragement in A Seed of Hope: God’s Promises of Fertility.
Here are some thoughts about hope that I shared over a year ago at In Due Time. If you’re about to give up because you’re feeling stuck in a difficult situation, I think this will help:
I know what the pressure of infertility feels like. It’s as if it completely surrounds you, pressuring you to give up, to not see any advantage in continuing to hope. In the midst of infertility, life can feel like you’re always stuck between a rock and a hard place. It seems like not much is working out in your favor. Every day seems as if infertility colors how you view life. It looms over every aspect of your life, clouding your vision so it’s hard to see anything good that’s on the horizon.
But I’m glad to share with you that in that place of feeling stuck, hope can shake things up, freeing you to enjoy life!
Here are 5 secrets that I’ve found to be powerful in nurturing and maintaining hope as you look to come out of this struggle with infertility.
Hope is one of the three things that 1 Corinthians 13:13 tells us will always remain as a resource that allows us to tap into God’s grace. We are to always have hope—the joyful and confident expectation of God coming through for us!
Allow hope to shake things up in your life so that you experience the freedom to confidently expect good things from a very good Father.
An Affirmation for You: God loves me and desires for me to experience only His goodness. I rest in His love for me. I choose to allow His desires for my life to be my desires. I maintain my hope in God!
When you’re feeling stuck in a situation at work, how do you bring yourself out of that? How can you apply that same strategy to infertility or some other personal struggle?
“Let us hold tightly to the confession of faith without wavering; for He is faithful that promised.” ~ Hebrews 10:23
The character of Jesus is such that He would NEVER lie (Numbers 23:19). His character, which is completely based on love, paves the way for having strong faith in Him because He would never make a promise and then go back on His Word or fail to fulfill it. Hold tightly– don’t loosen your grip on His promises. God’s words and His promises are true. Get into the habit of confessing your faith in them out loud. The passage in 2 Corinthians 1:20 assures us that His answers to His promises are already “Yes” in Christ.
Romans 10:17 informs us that faith comes by hearing:
“So faith comes from hearing, that is, hearing the Good News about Christ.” (NLT)
“The Good News about Christ” is that He has finished all the work and fulfilled all the requirements necessary in order for the Father to say “Yes.” There’s no work left to be done except to believe in Jesus’ love and His willingness to bring good things into our lives (John 6:29). When we hear ourselves reading about His love and repeatedly hear ourselves saying God’s words, it builds our faith. When we hear ourselves speaking the specific promises God made about our personal situation, it builds our faith in those promises. It increases our confidence in God’s integrity, in His ability to do what seems impossible, and in His willingness to do everything He promised.
Doubt is the enemy that comes along to plug our ears to the Good News so that we’re not hearing God’s promises. Doubt distracts us from looking to Jesus. When we’re enticed by the devil’s doubts to give up on God’s promises, we must react by speaking God’s Word to those doubts. By doing so, we choose to retain hope within our soul and expect God to do what He said He’d do. Our soul, which consists of our mind, will, and emotions, must choose to believe the promise, speak the promise to the problem while undergirding that confession with hope, and “act as if” the promise is already true.
When we have confidence in God fulfilling His promises and we have only a strong expectation of a good outcome, that is when we are empowered and living with strong faith.
Having faith in God’s promises means you allow the words in His promises to become influencers of how you think and act.
Focus on the following scripture throughout the day. It’s God’s Word and it’s what He desires us to believe. Believe it is true for your circumstances because God’s Word is Truth. Act like it is your truth.
Do you view God as a strict Judge or a loving Father?
Focus on the following scripture throughout the day. It’s God’s Word and it’s what He desires us to believe. Believe it is true for your circumstances because God’s Word is Truth. Act like it is your truth.
FUN is this month’s F-word in my 2014 F-word challenge.
As I have weaved my way through this challenge over the past four months, it’s clear that:
have all provided an environment where FUN can now thrive in my life. Weird huh?
The FUN started flowing right on 11/1/14 and hasn’t stopped yet. Each day, there has been some opportunity for me to have fun (I actually started tracking it). I’m loving it! I also see how I’m enjoying stretching myself in ways that I would not have enjoyed at the beginning of 2014. I’m finding that FUN is coming a lot easier than it used to. It’s coming at times and in places where I wasn’t looking for it and it’s happening more intensely in the places where I would expect it.
NOTE: A Word about my personality– I’m somewhat serious. There have been a few times when my kids and husband have called me a “fun-sucker” because I’ve killed the fun instead of enjoying it. So this month is HUGE for me! 🙂
For instance, this past weekend, I attended a conference that I knew would help me with my financial mindset. My expectation of it was that it would be B-O-R-I-N-G some of the time. But it wasn’t! Even though it was a 3-day intensive workshop, there were fun activities interspersed throughout the day. One of the activities was to allow attendees to come up on stage and dance at the beginning of each morning, afternoon, and evening session. When I got home Saturday night, I made up my mind to have some FUN by running up on the stage and be one of the dancers for the Sunday morning session. I did it, along with ~20 other attendees, most of whom could surprisingly stay on the beat! 🙂 It was a challenge for me since I’m usually the one who observes the FUN rather than participating in it. But this time, I was in the groove, literally.
This week is already packed with activities to have FUN with 3 friends– a new one, an old one that I haven’t seen in a while, and one who I’ve yet to get to know very well. My point is that when I got intentional about doing a few things (all the F-words), it created an environment of overflow that required no effort from me, other than being available and open to receive.
Kinda like God’s grace, don’t you think?
Would you like to take the F-word challenge? Maybe this would be a good way for you to start 2015. Let me know if you’re open to seeing what your intentionality will look like.
Photo courtesy of Vectorgirl | Fotolia
Monday’s Marinade is a little different today…
After listening to the CDC’s press conference about the first transmission of the Ebola virus within the U.S., I thought I’d share this so that we remember Who we belong to and what His Word is able to do on our behalf.
Instead of speaking fearfully about this virus spreading in the U.S., believe and boldly speak God’s powerful Word! Refuse to fear!
Soak yourself in this hope-filled Word of God that can stop Ebola in its tracks. Repeatedly think about this scripture and quietly say it to yourself.
Marinate and season your week with the hope this scripture contains. Have a confident expectation of good things happening!
Print out this graphic and place it somewhere to remind you to speak God’s Word of protection over yourself, family, and nation.
SHARE this post with your friends so that more of us are speaking victoriously in this global situation.
Have confidence that God loves you and has a blessed future planned for you. Focus on this scripture throughout the day. Believe it is true for you because God’s Word is Truth. Speak this Word to yourself throughout the day.
Focus on this scripture throughout the day. Be comforted knowing that barrenness is not what God desires for you. God’s desire is for you to experience a fruitful, abundant life– in your body and in ALL areas of your life. Believe it is true for you because God’s Word is Truth. Speak this Word to yourself throughout the day.
