Hope

What does it mean to hope? The dictionary defines it three ways: 1. to cherish a desire with anticipation 2.to desire with expectation of obtainment 3.to expect with confidence. We use the word pretty loosely though. I hope you feel better soon. Sure when I tell someone I do want them to feel better soon, but lets say they have a cold; is it really hoping when I know with an almost certainty that they will recover and feel better? Is that really hoping, or is it just, I want you to feel better soon; or it stinks that you don't feel good, I want there to be something I can do to make you feel better?
I have truly felt God telling me over and over for close to five years now to allow myself to hope. So I hoped for a baby. I hoped and hoped and hoped. I knew that my God could bring me a one. He did too. A wonderful little baby that is now a toddler. We gave her the middle name Tohelet; a Hebrew word that means hope. It is from the verse "Hope deferred makes the heartsick, but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life." Proverbs 13:12. I remember the heartsick feeling of hoping and having it not happen.
So after she was born I felt like I had really learned to walk in hope. I had trusted the Lord and the desire of my heart was now in my arms. And now here I stand. I am not doing a good job at hoping. I am great at worrying, fearing, and jumping to the worst possible conclusion. But hoping? I threw that out the window some time ago. I have lost hope.
It's a little odd to me that I have so much trouble with it. The word is literally tattooed on my foot to remind me to walk in hope. None the less I have forgotten how to hope. I have forgotten that God tells me to hope in Him and He will renew me. I need renewed. I have forgotten that the last time I hoped so much I felt heartsick, that my longing was fulfilled.
Remind me please. Tell me over and over to put my hope in the Lord. To hope for Abigail's healing, that she won't have all of the horrible possibilities, that I can hope for her to grow up and feel like a wonderful self-confident young woman.
So here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to hope that Abigail is completely healed. I am going to hope that all of the doctor appointments for neurofibromatosis are a technicality that never produce anything. I am going to hope that my God who is mighty to save will have mercy on my little bug.

"I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which He has called you, the riches of His glorious inheritance in the saints, and His incomparably great power for us who believe."
Ephesians 1:18-19a

I am going to do my best to know the hope to which I have been called.