Creatures are not born with desires unless satisfaction for those desires exists. — C. S. Lewis We all are hopers. We are creatures who cannot stop wishing. We are four-leaf-clover collectors. We wish on the evening star. We tell stories about genies coming out of a bottle to grant three wishes. After a turkey dinner,…
Hopelifters Need Hopelifters, Too!
Therefore encourage one another and build each other up, just as in fact you are doing. — 1 Thessalonians 5:11 “How do you fill your pitcher?” I’ll never forget hearing the speaker’s words as she finished pouring water into several glasses and held up an empty pitcher. I could relate to feeling empty after pouring…
Unanswered Prayers
It’s easy to slip into the mentality that we somehow fell through the cracks of God’s good plans. Things are too final. The ink is too dry. The page has been turned. Their heart is too hard. Your heart is too hurt. The doctors have said impossible. The account is too bankrupt. The biological clock…
Grabbing the Lifeline of Hope
We who have run for our very lives to God have every reason to grab the promised hope with both hands and never let go. It’s an unbreakable spiritual lifeline, reaching past all appearances right to the very presence of God… — Hebrews 6:18-19 The Message I am haunted by this passage. The promised hope.…
A New Understanding of God’s Love
Your salvation depends on what [Christ] has done for you, not on what you can do for Him. It isn’t your hold on God that saves you; it’s His hold on you. ~ Billy Graham WELCOME “Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so…” From our earliest years, many of us…
Praying to Move On with the Lord
“I’m still on shaky ground,” I said to myself as I drove to church one Sunday morning nearly a year after coming to know the Lord. Even though my life was much improved, I still had this uneasy feeling that at any moment I could lose the stability I’d gained. I feared that my glimpses…
Jesus’ Tears Give You Permission to Shed Your Own
Martha sat in a damp world, cloudy, tearful. And Jesus sat in it with her. I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in Me, even though they die like everyone else, will live again. — John 11:25 NLT Hear those words in a Superman tone, if you like. Clark Kent descending from…
Giving Hope to the Hopeless
My husband, Rich, lost his dad unexpectedly when he was eight. When father and son functions happened through the years, men from church and his friends’ dads always included him. Perhaps that’s why my husband has such a heart for Little League baseball and is known throughout our community as a caring coach. When our next door neighbor and…
Dance Stand Run: Let’s Go Back
It’s okay if we’ve had some misconceptions about grace, holiness, and mission. But it’s time for us to go back to the beginning of our faith and sort them out. ✦ Suggested Reading in Dance, Stand, Run: Intro, Chapter 1 (To be read by facilitator) Intro Ladies, friends, sisters: are you ready? This week, we’re…
Depression: The Lord is Close to the Brokenhearted
by Barbara Hunsaker, excerpted from Hopelifter: Creative Ways to Spread Hope When Life Hurts by Kathe Wunnenberg As a principal of a small Christian school, one phenomenon I saw from time to time was “cutting.” Students would cut themselves, not deeply enough to do permanent damage but enough to inflict pain and leave scars. I wondered why…