When we are buried by worry, we can look up and see hope surrounding us. 

Recently I was invited to speak to a group of women during their annual spring retreat. They were an enthusiastic and sweet group of women who I quickly bonded with over our mutual love for Jesus. During one of their ice breaker games, they had women stand up who had been bungee jumping.

I was shocked that several women admitted to willingly leaping from a ridiculously tall structure and found themselves dangling by a thin elastic rubber band. They not only admitted it, they threw up their hands in victory and high-fived each other.

I shivered.

And then I smiled.

It sounds a lot like hope to me.

“Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” Hebrews 11:1

It is true, hope may be unseen at times. As Christians we are called to believe unbelievable things. We can’t see God and touch him, the same way believers did when Jesus walked the earth. But all the same, we can have faith and HOPE in his presence and ability to work in every situation.

This faith in unseen hope became real for me when my husband suffered a sudden cardiac arrest in 2017 and spent eight long days in a coma. I told a couple of my dear friends, “I can’t see through this.” And these wise women placed their hands on me and said, “You’re not supposed to. But Jesus can see through this and he will show you the way.”

What I could see was that God had always been faithful in the past.

I could look around and see how he was working around me in the present.

And whatever the future held, I could trust that the core of his heart for us was steadfast love and kindness.

That is 360 degrees of hope-fueled faith.

Can I give you a bit of encouragement today? If you are in a season that feels a whole lot like jumping off a perfectly good structure and wondering if that thin cord of hope is going to hold you fast, learn to pray as I did, “Lord, I can’t see you with my eyes. Show me in my heart.”

In the meantime, keep your vision narrow, fixed on Jesus. Don’t look for problems you can solve or circumstances you can control. It also helps to be hiding the Word of God in our hearts along the way when life is not quite as difficult. It is absolutely true that God can (and will) bring those truths back to us to give us the strength we need to keep holding on to hope.

And I promise you, when you cling to hope, Jesus doesn’t ever let go.

(Portions of this article are taken from Unraveled: Hope for the Mom at the End of Her Rope by Stacey Thacker and Brooke McGlothlin).