What is Highlighting Hope?

What is Highlighting Hope? Where did you get the name?

These are two questions that I have been asked pretty frequently in the past month and I wanted to take a moment to share with you the “why”.

In September of 2016, I miscarried our third baby a few days shy of 12 weeks. I was left to labor through it at home and I was left pretty shaken. I was desperately wanting time to just stand still so I could process all that had just happened and grieve, but as life would have it, time continued to roll on.

Within a matter of two or three days of this miscarriage, my husband received a job promotion that we had been praying about, but it would require him to be out of town throughout the week and hopefully make it home on the weekends.

I was pretty bitter that God would answer this prayer when he did. The wounds in my heart were so fresh and I wanted my husband close by and not three hours from home. What I didn’t know then, was God had a plan in all of this. His timing is perfect, even if it feels painful. God used this time of my husband being gone to teach me to look to Him for the comfort and truth that only He could provide me.

In the days to come, I would soon begin a battle with anxiety. I didn’t understand this then, but there is big difference in willful anxiety and clinical anxiety. Mine was clinical.

Through all of these circumstances that left me feeling shaken and even alone- I learned that I was not. I learned just how alive and active the word of God is and it carried me through 3 agonizing years of anxiety.

My comfort came from the Holy Spirit’s prompting to write down the truths and themes of hope that were screaming at me from the pages of His word. God was healing me and comforting me everyday with His word. Knowing God more is what brought me true comfort!

As I began to write these things down, God then told me something terrifying to do- share. I realized obeying Him and honoring Him was more important than any criticism from others that I could ever receive. I had to quit worrying about my imperfections because we are imperfect people looking to a perfect Savior. I needed to remove my mask and share how God has worked and is working in my life. I was being called to share the unwavering hope that God supplies to His people.

Through this trial, I learned how much God cares that we hurt , cares that we feel shaken and that even if we ‘feel’ shaken, we don’t have to be. I learned that the enemy works in isolation, but God has called us to community with one another, so we can speak His truth into one another’s lives.

The name Highlighting Hope came from the Lord. As I was writing one day in the spring of 2017, this was the name that He gave. God wants His people to know Him and knowing Him results in unwavering HOPE!