This is a continuation of a story I started yesterday. Click here to go to that story.

Throughout the next year, one thing after another dwindled away our savings account. My husband was against taking out a loan to do this project, so for now, the Operation Home-school Room was stalled out. The newly poured concrete did make a great bike path and hopscotch canvas.

By the end of that year, a 4 day hospital stay for my husband completely drained what remained in our savings and the day we paid that bill I silently said good-bye to seeing construction out my bathroom window anytime soon.

My hope was dwindling.

The next year held a new hope for us – God had abundantly provided for all of us to travel to Kenya in May.

Kenya had become a yearly trip for us over the past 5 years. We partnered with an organization called Lighthouse for Christ, a 3-pronged ministry that offers quality eye care, Pastoral training and plants churches in the heavily Muslim Mombasa area. Adam volunteered to go through our church and help build a church structure for a congregation who otherwise met under a tree or inside a mud hut.

I joined a few years after him to teach at a Women’s Conference.

The truth is, this family trip was a vision trip for us. We felt like the Lord was calling us to live there full-time and support our friends at Lighthouse for Christ. However, during our one month stay there, the Lord revealed to us He wasn’t finished with us in East Texas and told us in essence to GO HOME.

I tell people that before this trip it felt like we had walked down a long hallway lined with doors on both sides and Kenya at the end. One by one the Lord closed those doors, leaving the option to move to Kenya open. When we got there, He turned us around and told us to go back down that hallway and knock on each door again.

To me, that took more faith than packing my bags for Kenya.

One of those closed doors was that home-school room. My hope had been deferred so long I had given up on it being anything other than a concrete slab.

When we got back home from Kenya in June, we added up what we had in savings and miraculously, even though we just took a month long vacation, we had enough to start phase one of the project! It seemed too good to be true!

God had answered something so important to me and I felt so special to Him. People would say, “Wow, this remodel is going up quickly!” And I would reply that the plans had been drawn up, the room arranged in my head for 2 years. I was so excited to see it actually take shape!

As I look back on that story, I see so many lessons on  hope. Sometimes we hope for something God doesn’t answer in our timing. He’s not wanting us to be mad at Him and withdraw. He’s wanting us to press into Him and and trust Him.

He wanted me to put my hope in Him – not in the answers to my prayer.

My hope had been many times in that new room. When God continued to defer it, I had to hope in the promise, the fact that His timing is perfect and He is faithful even when my prayer isn’t answered on my time frame. I learned to hold unswerving to this anchor of hope so I’m not beaten up by the waves of doubt raging all around me.

He hasn’t promised me a big homeschooling room in His Word, but He has promised to supply all I need. He hasn’t promised me that homeschooling would be easy or even satisfying every day. But he has promised that He will be with me in the troublesome days.

Our anchor of hope lies within the veil. It is latched to God Himself – not in the answers to our prayer or even His blessings. Those aren’t anchors at all. They are tied to a log floating on the water that will take me along with the current. God is faithful and anchors me steady to resist the sweeping current.

What are you hoping in dear friend? Can I pray for you?

Dear Heavenly Father, I pray for my friend reading this story today. We all have those unanswered prayers that pain our heart. You have heard them and you know every detail of them. I pray that you would teach us all more about Yourself and anchor us deeply in you as we trust your timing. I pray you will abundantly provide that which we need. In Jesus name, Amen.

I created this image with today’s scripture on it for you to download and use as you’d like. May God’s Word sink deeply into our soul and give us hope. Click the link to download.

let-us-hold-unswervingly-to-the-hope-we-profess-for-he-who-promised-is-faithful-hebrews-10-23

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This post is apart of a 31 day writing challenge on Hope. To read the whole series, click HERE.