Hope, the Best of Things - Being a Single Mom 4

Hope is the best of things, it cultivates in our souls a desire to remain steadfast, to hold on, and to endure. As much as this is true, hope eludes when we are bogged down in difficulties. Often this is where a single parent finds themselves, bogged down through everything required of them. The functioning of the home, wellbeing of the family – physical and spiritual – rests with them.

When disciplines are established to learn how to hope, and it is entrenched in the soul – the single parent will find they can endure anything. Knowing who holds them gives them the confidence needed to persevere. This is a good thing.

Their first priority is to change how they think about their circumstances, who is in control, and who ordained the very lives they are living. When they grasp this essential truth the reality of their circumstances changes, the burden and weight is removed and they can walk in freedom. Hope, is the best of things.

Because these truths are hard to process we again encourage the single parent to find a counselor / discipler to work with, to talk these truths through. It will call for humility to ask for help, to ask for a babysitter while counseling takes place – but, I would call this a must, and essential. Or, they can continue to follow This & That for more encouragement. However, we ask you think through the truths presented and prayerfully apply them to your life. It will change you, it will change your family.

• Uphold me according to your promise, that I may live, and let me not be put to shame in my hope! Hold me up, that I may be safe and have regard for your statutes continually (Psalm 119:116-117).

• We rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us (Romans 5:3-5).

• By two unchangeable things, in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have fled for refuge might have strong encouragement to hold fast to the hope set before us. We have this as a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul, a hope that enters into the inner place behind the curtain (Hebrews 6:18-19).

• Let anyone who thinks that he stands take heed lest he fall (1 Corinthians 10:12).

• Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned (Romans 12:2-3).

What changes do you need to make today to begin to grow in your understanding of what the Lord is doing in this season of your life?

#singlemom #hope