New Year New Hope
What is it about the New Year that makes us feel so hopeful. Literally it’s as if we all think that when the clock strikes midnight and the new year begins, that our life will magically be completely different. Different goals. Different routines. Different circumstances. Different us. The mere thought of it all seems to bring so much hope for the future. This year will be different. This year will somehow be better. But of course, that just isn’t always the case.
When you are a parent of a child, teen, or adult child with special needs, you can’t just magically wish your life’s circumstances away. One day having circumstances like this and the next day having circumstances completely different just isn’t going to happen, no matter how much we may wish at times that this could be the case. So how do we face the new year when everyone else around us seems to be high on hope and we are not? How do we find hope?
Show Care
God calls us to show care so He can bring the hope.” I’m hard about life.”, Abbey told Eric the other day. She was basically trying to tell him that she felt like her life is hard right now. She’s struggling in a few ways and she’s trying to push forward, but life is just hard for her right now. We wouldn’t think of just telling her to “cheer up”, “life will get better”, after all “all things work together for good”. No, we sit with her, and we listen, and we care.
Romans 12:15 says to, “Mourn with the mourners”. When something is hard in our lives or in others, we don’t just gloss over it. We are to be still and let it be as it is. We don’t need to quickly move the feelings along when we are still in the midst of something hard. We are to mourn with the mourners and to show care, and that includes for ourselves as well. This is one way that God brings us hope in the midst of hard.
Be Still
God calls us to be still so He can be our hope. Psalms 46:10 says, “Be still and know that I am God”. In Exodus 14:14, my personal favorite especially for IEP season is, God reminds us, “The Lord will fight for you; you need only to be still.”
God is calling us to still our minds and our hearts and to rely on Him completely because He is the way maker. He has the plans (Jere 29:11) and He will direct our steps (Prov 16:9 ). We need only to be still. He loves us and He doesn’t want us to spin in our stress, so He gently reminds us to be still, and He will be our hope.
Hope Anew
Yes, we can have a new hope in the new year, even when we are living in the midst of hard circumstances. Our hope won’t be a shallow kind of hope. A hope in things that are temporary, here today and gone tomorrow. No, our hope can be a new kind of hope. A solid hope in the one who is the hope. And that’s the best kind of HOPE of all.
