Hope in the Wills

So far this week I have found out that two people I know got engaged recently. Two. And it's Wednesday. I know it's God's plan for me to be single. I know it's what's best for me. I know. I know, but I don't feel.

Hebrews says that "faith is being sure of what we hope for, being convinced of what we do not see." So many times, I am reminded that faith is being convinced of what I do not feel.

I feel lonely. But I know that the Lord, my God, is with me wherever I go.
I feel lost. I feel aimless. But I know that God is working in me, and through me, to finish a good work He has started, a good work He has planned--even when I don't feel like He is doing much of anything.
I feel like I'm missing something. But I know my portion is the Lord and my hope is in Him.

Or at least my hope should be in Him. The more I thought about it, the more I started to realize that so often during my day, that's not really true of me. My hope is in 2:55 pm, when I get to dismiss my most difficult class. My hope is in a character in whatever book I'm reading. My hope is in the bubble bath I'm going to take that will make me feel better. My hope is in maybe one day I'll be cooking dinner for someone other than just me, watching a basketball game with someone sitting in the same room instead of with my little sister over the phone, learning to stop sleeping diagonally in my bed because I'm not the only one in it. My hope is in things that don't matter, won't last, might never happen.

My hope should be in the Lord. In His love for me. In His grace. In His salvation, my redemption. In Heaven. My hope should be in these things that do matter, will never change, will always last, will happen.

Is it any wonder that I feel let down and dissatisfied sometimes? I let myself live in a world of maybe, won't, and don't when I could be living in a world of will. Christ died so I could live in a world of will. It seems so simple, so obvious, yet it is often so hard to keep my eyes on what I know.

And it is at times like this that I'm reminded that the things most worth it are all too often the things that are hard.

All the afternoons I cry and go home feeling like a useless failure become worth it when a student smiles when they finally understand something. Or when it is so clear they feel proud of themselves for writing the correct MLA-formatted citation for something. Or when I get an e-mail from a parent saying their son or daughter likes to read now, and they think I had something to do with that.

All the times I miss my dad become worth it when I get to share my story with someone who is struggling or someone who doesn't know the Lord, the story of how He brought me through the one thing I never thought I could make it through. Or when I get to look at the three students I have this year who have lost a parent and know that maybe they don't feel so different anymore because they know that when their Language Arts teacher was in 7th grade she had felt what it's like to have a parent die, to have the uncertainty of the world dropped in your lap before you were old enough to know what to do with it. Or when I laugh with my little brother, who wouldn't be here if my dad still were, and who is a real, tangible example of tremendous blessing coming out of unimaginable darkness.

And I know that to my God, history's darkest day, when He turned His back on His own Son was worth it because that's what it took for our relationship to be reconciled. Even though I can't even come close to understanding that. I know that for God the death of His Son was worth it because that's how He saved me.

So while there are plenty of days when it is easier to feel sorry for myself, to complain, to wish for a different life because that's the way my sinful mind will wander when left unchecked, I know that it's not worth taking the easy way; while it may be hard and may take more energy to set my mind on things above--sometimes energy I don't think I have left--I know that it's worth it. Because choosing to hope in a will is always better than settling for hope in a maybe.