Practicing Hope
What journeying through years of infertility has taught me about clinging to and living out hope each day
A few weeks ago I was in a session with my own spiritual director, and we talked about hope. I’ve had quite the back-and-forth with hope over the last few years, as Bryan and I walked through more than three years of infertility. I’ve described hope as stubborn, something that just won’t quit or let go of me, even when despair was lurking nearby. And there were certainly moments of despair. Somehow though, even when it felt impossible, I held onto the stubborn hope that someday we’d have children of our own.
After my spiritual direction session ended, I walked away with this question: How exactly do I actually practice hope? What does it look like to live out hope in daily moments? I’ve been pondering these questions for a few weeks, and I thought I’d share some ways that the Lord has helped me to put hope to practice. Clinging to and living out our hope feels like something we all could use right now.
REMEMBER THAT I'M NOT ALONE.
Hope became more solid when I could share it with a friend, and less like an intangible wisp of an idea. It took a more discernible shape when a friend shared something that had been encouraging to her own heart several months back. She was familiar with the pain of infertility herself, and she said this to me: “We are in a great company of women in scripture who have walked this same road.”
Women like Sarah, Rebekah, Rachel, Hannah, and Elizabeth. Women who ached and longed and cried out, and women who were very human in their waiting. I think of Sarah who laughed when an angel told her she’d have a baby in her old age, or Rachel who struggled with jealousy as she watched her sister Leah have child after child, or Hannah who was so honest in her grief and prayer that Eli thought she was drunk. And God was near to each of them. I’ve found so much comfort in their stories, in knowing that my own hopes and longings have been shared by women across centuries and cultures. Chances are, whatever you’re hoping for has been shared by others, too, and it’s worth finding their stories, because the truth is that you’re not alone as you wrestle with hope.
REACH OUT.
Despair is at its worst when we’re in isolation. For a while, Bryan and I held our struggles with infertility very close to the chest. Part of me felt like so few people in our church community would understand, as people’s families seemed to be growing left and right, and new pregnancy announcements popped up in my social media feeds on the daily. Not to mention that we were still wading through our own emotional responses to what we were experiencing. In some ways, I felt very alone. It took a while for me to realize that regardless of whether or not someone understood this particular struggle, I needed close friends to talk to about it.
Thankfully, I’ve had a few dear friends who have walked this same path, and being able to share with one another was a lifeline. Gradually, I felt more comfortable sharing about infertility more openly, and before I knew it, there were many loving people joining us in prayer that we’d be able to have a child. Looking back, I’m overwhelmed with gratitude for each of these special souls! If you’re reading this, and you’re one of them, thank you.
LET MYSELF ENTER INTO PRAISE.
First, I want to recognize that sometimes we just need to cry out to God and let Him hear our disappointment and sorrow. I’ve found so much comfort in the Psalms, where David and the other psalmists let God have it when they couldn’t see Him working.
But in every psalm of lament (except for one), the psalmist has a moment when hope seems to flicker, ever so slightly, and the language of sorrow and frustration turns to a declaration of praise. It isn’t a forced or legalistic response of praise, though—it always feels to me like an honest grappling of the human experience, which is a constant tension between polarities and paradoxes. Hope itself can be this meeting place between lament and praise, where we hold the now with the not-yet.
LET GO OF WHAT I CAN’T CONTROL.
One of the most painful parts of hope is knowing that we can’t control the outcome. Whatever it is we are waiting for may not happen the way we expect. In fact, the painful reality is it may not happen at all. I really hate that, if I’m being honest. It’s easy to tell myself tropes and cliches like, “Well, God has a better plan,” or “when He closes a door, He opens a window,” but those frankly aren’t helpful.
What I can control, though, is where I place my hope, and very often, I need to actually take an honest “hope inventory.” As followers of Jesus, our ultimate hope is in God’s redemptive, restoring work that He is always, always, always enacting—and one day, He’ll set it ALL right. That bigger, eschatological hope has strengthened me and given me a foundation on which every other hope is built. I can’t always control the outcomes in my own life, but I know the One who breathes life into dry, dead places and makes them new again.
FIND AN ANCHORING PRACTICE.
As a contemplative, I love simple prayer practices and and experiences that I can do anytime, anywhere, that help me to feel anchored in the hope of Christ Jesus. Throughout the last six months, I’ve turned to breath prayer, praying the Psalms, reading more, journaling, going for walks, and creating better habits around the use of my phone (and let’s be honest…I’m still working on that last one). Turning to prayer and scripture before looking at my phone is perhaps one of the most significant practices, especially in recent weeks, that allows me to turn to my hope in God first, before I start scrolling newsfeeds and emails and being tempted back into judgment, anger, fear, or restlessness.
I’d encourage you to find one or two of your own anchoring practices. Perhaps it’s repeating a passage of scripture in your mind throughout the day, or pausing for a minute to notice God’s nearness to you (John Eldredge has a great new app for this). Find something that reminds you where your true anchor is, gently drawing you back to Jesus.
INVITE THE HOLY SPIRIT.
It’s so dang easy for me to miss the presence of God in the moments of my day. I need His help in order to turn my attention to Him, again and again, and simply asking for this help has made a huge difference. I’m looking for God to show up, waiting for Him to give me His tender mercies in simple moments, and when they happen, my hope cup is filled until it’s overflowing into the next day.
Eugene Peterson calls this kind of hope “alert expectancy” in his translation of Romans 5:1-5:
"By entering through faith into what God has always wanted to do for us—set us right with him, make us fit for him—we have it all together with God because of our Master Jesus. And that’s not all: We throw open our doors to God and discover at the same moment that he has already thrown open his door to us. We find ourselves standing where we always hoped we might stand—out in the wide open spaces of God’s grace and glory, standing tall and shouting our praise. There’s more to come: We continue to shout our praise even when we’re hemmed in with troubles, because we know how troubles can develop passionate patience in us, and how that patience in turn forges the tempered steel of virtue, keeping us alert for whatever God will do next. In alert expectancy such as this, we’re never left feeling shortchanged. Quite the contrary—we can’t round up enough containers to hold everything God generously pours into our lives through the Holy Spirit!” (Romans 5:1-5, MSG)
REMEMBER GOD’S FAITHFULNESS.
The theme of remembrance is all over the scriptures. My former Young Life boss used to say that Israel got into trouble whenever they forgot God’s power and His promise, so remembering and declaring specific moments when God has proven Himself faithful has been an act of hope that I return to again and again.
I’ll think back to times when God was present during loss or grief, times when He gave me a gift beyond anything I could have dreamt up myself, or times when I heard Him speak so clearly and straight to my heart. I always think of Lamentations 3 in this act of remembering, when in the midst of suffering and bitterness, there’s this simultaneous recollection of God’s faithful, unyielding love.
This pregnancy has been a consistent reminder of God’s faithfulness these last few months, a tangible gift of sustaining hope. The most incredible part about it is that God’s faithfulness in our own lives is breathing hope into others, too. I know this because friends reached out to say so, and I can’t even tell you how much that makes my heart fill to overflowing. It shows me that God is redeeming years of pain and longing, as only He can do. He is a good, good God.
I think one of the things I’ve been learning is that hope is a liminal space. It’s in-between. We long for something we haven’t yet received or experienced, and our souls yearn for it. Pregnancy feels like that to me right now, strangely enough! I know something’s happening, but I can’t yet see the full result, and sometimes it feels like time is moving so slowly. Someone joked on a Zoom call the other day that they’re so glad pregnancy isn’t just one month long, because we desperately need that time to prepare and get ready for what’s coming.
I have a sense that God seems to love these liminal times. The waiting itself becomes sacred. Much like pregnancy, or perhaps even seasons when fields lay fallow before being replanted, the Spirit of God—the very same Spirit that raised Christ from the dead—is doing the minuscule and often unseen work of preparing and creating life beneath the soil of your soul that you can’t yet discern.
BENEDICTION
“May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.” (Romans 15:13)