Holman Bible Dictionary definition of hope: Biblical hope is the anticipation of a favorable outcome under God's guidance.
Faith is the confidence that what we hope for will actually happen... Hebrews 11:1
So faith and hope are intertwined.
"The word hope I take for faith; and indeed hope is nothing else but the constancy of faith."
--John Calvin
Sometimes I'm a lot like Peter! I can see Jesus; my eyes are on him. He tells me to come to him out on the water. I jump out of that boat with little or no hesitation. Things are good. I feel closer to Jesus than I ever have. I may even take a second to wonder why more people haven't jumped out of the boat with me. Then it happens....I start looking around at my circumstances instead of Jesus and I start to lose hope. My faith is shaken.
When we started this adoption (our second one), God had me back in the book of Joshua. Did I mention that's what we plan to call our son. "When you see the Levitical priests carrying the Ark of the Covenant of the LORD your God, move out from your positions and follow them. Since you have never traveled this way before..." Joshua 3:3-4 I didn't get it. This is our second adoption. So we are adopting a boy this time from a different country, but really how different can it be? "Never traveled this way before"?
It turns out that Honduras is NOT Ethiopia. I know, this is shocking! Well, it kinda was to me.
Honduras is in Central America.....
and they function on Central American time (not mine).
There are always ups and downs in international adoption. With Ethiopia on the other side of the world and speaking a very foreign language (as opposed to Spanish for a Texan), I was completely unaware of the political temperature. There is a lot of information available out of Honduras. At any given moment I can read a Honduran newspaper thanks to Google translate.
The roller coaster ride recently, really shook my faith and I lost hope that my son would come out of Honduras before I had grandchildren. Someone suggested a fasting period. I knew right away she was right, but I am not a very nice person without food. The blood sugar drops and it's not pretty. Since my weak point seemed to be information overload, I decided to fast from Facebook. SHOCKING! I love my Facebook friends! My on-line adoption community is so supportive and encouraging, but God speaks in a still small voice and I knew I was drowning Him out with too many other voices.
I took a week off from Facebook and guess what!!! Hope showed up in the word and in flesh. I received words of encouragement from friends that I could hug! A friend at church told me she felt a need to pray for our family and our adoption journey. I ran into another adoptive mom (that I never get to see) at the grocery store with her newly home son from China and we shared our hearts right there in the HEB.
God is faithful and He keeps His promises! I'm so thankful that He never gives up on me! And like with Peter, when I loose focus, He pulls me up and reminds me that He is all I need!
By the way: Tesfa is Amharic for Hope and Esperanza is Hope in Spanish.
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