Hope in Darkness

The brokenness that I see in the communities can at times feel overwhelming. It can feel hopeless yet there is such beauty in amongst this brokenness and despair. This beauty is hope. Hope means more than a vague wish that something will happen. it is a sure and confident expectation in God's future faithfulness and presence. Our hope is in Jesus who promised He would not leave us behind as orphans.

There is hope in seeing a child smile. There is hope in witnessing the loving exchange between a Care Worker and a child. There is hope in seeing a child with food sticking to their face and hands because it means that their stomach is full. There is hope in seeing people fully and completely surrender their lives to Christ, knowing that He loves them. He sees them. He knows them by name. Jesus Christ is our hope. He is bringing light to the darkness and love to the lost. Through Him we have a hope for the future. We can shine His bright light into situations of despair as we have been brought into the kingdom family and called children of the Father.

So it is in the midst of desperate and heartbreaking situations, that I hold onto the hope that He that will make all things new. I choose to have faith in what I can't see and hold onto the hope that one day, God will redeem the world as He welcomes His children into eternity with Him. We hold onto this hope and we desire to share this with the children, Care Workers and Primary Caregivers that we serve because we know that it is Christ alone who save, redeems and loves us beyond human comprehension. He is our Hope.

"The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me, because the Lord has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. he has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor and the day of vengeance of our God, to comfort all who mourn and provide for those who grieve in Zion - to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of joy instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair. They will be called oaks of righteousness, a planting of the Lord for the display of His splendor." 
Isaiah 61: 1-3 


 





Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A Time to Learn

As orientation has now finished, I have been placed here in South Africa, where I will be working with the Hazeyview Service Centre Team. What this means... I don't really know yet. I haven't quite figured that part out. All I've been told is that I'm to build relationships with the individuals that work within the service centre and encourage and support them with the work that they are doing. If they need help with some work, then I will help, but most importantly I am to follow them in what they do and to learn from them. I think that the reason that we are not told much is that they don't want people to go into this time with the Service Centres with high expectations and also they dont want people to go in thinking that they know everything. We are told to have "big ears, and small mouths." This next 5 weeks will be a time of learning, and gaining more insight into the work that the Service Centre does on a regular basis. One of my favourite moments
Read more

Daring to Hope Part 2

Throughout the last months, I have realised that when I look at poverty and incompressible suffering and heartbreak, I find it easy to slip into a way of thinking that blames God. I find myself choosing to ignore the evidence of God’s goodness and faithful and instead I allow my heart to be filled with a feeling of hopelessness that if don’t to God and surrender, threatens to consume me. Yet as I read this book, I was reminder of the reality that despite the pain, I have seen God’s redemptive hand at work in the lives of the most vulnerable and my own. I was reminded that hope is “our great expectancy that we will know Him in all our circumstances, even the seemingly hopeless ones.” Having hope doesn’t make sense to the outside world. It logical doesn’t make sense to have hope in God when there are child dying and being physically abused. It doesn’t make sense. I’ve found that it can be emotionally and spiritually tiring to have hope and faith in situations that I migh
Read more

Selfless giving

As I sit in my room contemplating what to write, I am conflicted. I am conflicted because although more than a month has passed since my last blog past I feel as though nothing has changed, and yet I also feel as though so much has happened. As I debated what to share, I came upon the conclusion of sharing on my most recent community stay. It is fresh in my mind and I am fresh with emotions revolving around the poverty that I see and experience on a daily basis.  The poverty that I am surrounded by never ceases to overwhelm me. Whenever I go into community and look around at the children with tattered clothing, runny noses, cuts, scrapes, protruded stomachs from a lack of nourishment, my heart shatters more every time. It never becomes easy going into community and seeing poverty. I don't think that anyone can every become ammuned to it. When I think about poverty, I question how it can exist when the western-world in comparison is so wealthy. I think about my home which is a
Read more