In the same way that the Spirit filled a young girl all those thousands of years ago, in the same way that the Spirit hovered over the waters of an unformed sea, in the same way that the Spirit came into the body of a dead man and brought him to life again, so our bodies–through the tremendous mercy of God–have the same capacity to hold that Spirit. God answers the plague of lies by God’s own abundant presence pouring inside us.

We look at the hurt and pain of this world, and we hope for something different, for love to win, for people to be cared for and protected. We look at the promise of heaven and want to see it come to pass. We hope for our days, for ourselves. We hope that we will find patience towards the people around us. That we are living up to our potential. That we will be a light in the world.

But what does that actually look like? What does it mean to have hope when life doesn’t match up to what we are hoping for?

The beauty of breath prayer is not that it only make us present to ourselves, but that we are made aware of the presence of God. We are meant to be in communion with God, and prayer is the conduit to experience the fulness of his presence.

Reminding myself again and again, sometimes several times per day, of God’s unchanging character gave me hope in my messy divorce. My faith has grown tremendously in my divorce recovery, and God has truly been my secure anchor in the days, weeks, and months that followed the original trauma.

As hard as it is, vulnerability is a good thing. It keeps our hearts feeling, open to the emotions and experiences that keep life full of color and beauty. If we close ourselves off to hope, we close ourselves off to the possibility of thriving in life.

There’s a tension we hold between the hurt and the healing, between the sorrow and the joy, which leads to a longing for restoration, for life to be good again, and for the assurance that joy is possible.

As I grew in my relationship with the Lord, I had to learn how to balance my expectations from my earthly father with my hope in my heavenly Father. The distinction is sometimes indiscernible to us, yet it is so significant. It lies in understanding what God has actually promised as opposed to what He hasn’t.

These desert experiences are common to us all. They don’t mean we have erred or that God has forgotten us. But if they are unavoidable, what in the world are we supposed to do in the middle of the desert? How can we bloom in such harsh conditions?

God does not ask us to be constantly busy, nor do we need to fill our days to prove our worth. In fact, He calls us to the opposite. God reaches out and reminds us our worth does not come from how full our days are, or how important we may seem. Our worth comes from the very fact that He created us.

Hearing the doctors say they have no clue why I’m not getting pregnant isn’t the easiest thing to listen to, regardless of how encouraging their intentions. Have you been wrestling with the reality of your unmet expectations lately? Because if you have been, we're in good company. Whenever I need encouragement, I look to Elijah's story in 1 Kings 19. It’s one that I believe can speak to us in this moment.

I couldn’t seem to shake off the feeling of dread and fear of what the future might hold. Reading seemed to steer my thoughts away from the worry, but sleep still eluded me. In Psalm 4, David also was distressed and cried out to God. His process of dealing with anxiety gives us a pattern when our anxious thoughts disturb our sleep.

You don’t have to wait until the stars of your life align, for your problems to vanish, or to understand the mysteries of life. You do have to keep taking your heavy burdens to the Lord. You have to be willing to let go of all you hold onto, so that He can hold it instead. Joy is available here and now and it’s birthed out of a renewed trust in God.

We cause ourselves heartache and hurt, making situations worse and bringing unnecessary pain and stress into our lives. For as much as we want power and control of our own lives, we are not equipped to be God. How can we come to trust again when we know both our proclivity to wrest control away from God and our tendency to feel like we let God down by not trusting? Friend, there is hope.

Do you want deeper, spiritual relationships? Ones that help you draw closer to God while getting closer to others? We are created for community, and when we find others who share our faith, that’s a real treasure worth exploring.

Hopelessness can be tempting. When life gets hard, I tend to measure my situation by what is missing, not by what I have.

We all have times when we are lonely, when our efforts to develop friendships falls flat. I remember a lengthy season in which I was very occupied but completely unfulfilled in friendship. I have learned to trust that God does want community for me, and that these times are temporary and can teach us some useful things about God and about ourselves.

Life can feel a lot like that path my husband and I hiked. Though beauty and blessings surround us, the challenging parts keep us from seeing and enjoying them. The busyness of life grabs our attention away from the simple moments.

As we weather all of life’s endless transitions—of shifting relationships and careers, deaths of loved ones and changes in our environment, cross-country moves and persisting through the ordinary seasons, what would it look like to trust the branch beneath our feet will hold when we land on it?

In times of transition, we struggle and second-guess our decisions for work and calling. What I (and I suspect many others) didn’t realize was that the questioning would periodically creep back into my life, even ten years after college.

Sometimes we have to wait for God. We want God to move, to act, to do. We pray about direction, about health, about emotional stability, and God is silent. There’s no answer. We have to wait, and in the waiting, we can start to feel alone, isolated, ignored.