“...I don’t see hope as a fruitful attitude anymore. I see it as frustration only.” My Middle Eastern friend was hurting. She’d been married for two years and still was not pregnant. While my American worldview would never totally figure out how hard it was for an Arabic woman in this situation, I had enough cultural exposure to know that shame and expectation seemed to be weaving a tightening web around her heart. 

She wasn’t the only one I’d talked with who had a hard time feeling a heartbeat of hope; “...I didn’t want to leave that place...”; “...why won’t my fellow workers call this person’s sin out?...”. Over and over I heard of prayers that didn’t seem to be answered, and since I had added my prayers to theirs, I had started to feel a bit hopeless myself. I couldn’t produce a baby for my Middle Eastern friend any more than I could change the circumstances of the other women with whom I talked.  

I thank God that He didn’t let that sense of futility sit in me for long. I had often asked God for hope for one of these women using this verse: “Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you believe in Him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit” (Romans 15:13). God brought me to another verse in Romans and expanded that prayer. Romans 5:3 – the verse which connects glory with of all things, tribulation. It states that tribulation, that thing we try so very hard to avoid, actually performs or accomplishes or works something in us. You probably know what that something is: patience, character, and hope.  

In the past, I think I was so stuck on the glory in the tribulation thing, that I missed what God works in the trial. He helps us to see how much love He’s already given or deposited in us. It’s sort of like when traffic came to a stop in Bucharest. Though I was not happy with the honking horns, exhaust, and lack of progress, I still knew with reasonable certainty that this was the only road that would get us to where we needed to be. Eventually traffic would clear and we’d reach our destination. God’s road is much more certain than man’s could ever be. He promises that even though we feel stuck on His road, eventually we will know more of His love and hope.

My prayer for these ladies with so little hope has changed since God helped me see these verses anew. Now, in the midst of their yuck, I ask God to help them to see His sovereignty and persevere through the power of the Holy Spirit. I ask God to change their character to be more like His. I ask God to give them a much greater view of how deep His love is for them. I ask Him to help them know His true hope.