Today was a hard day. I should have known when my moring was spent meditating about hoping against hope. The scripture was in Romans 4 when it says that Abraham "hoped against hope" and "..did not waver through unbelief..but believed that God had the power to do what he had promised." THAT should have been my first clue. I talked to my brother about it and he said that Benedict Spinoza, a 16th century philosopher said that hope was "wanting something whose existance or attainability we doubt." Spinoza also said "There is no hope unmingled with fear, and no fear unmingled with hope." I love that idea- that to have fear and doubt is inherent in hopefulness. Hope means in spite of the odds we are holding out for something. As a person of faith I sometimes expect more from myself. I think "Is that all you can do is hope? There should be no doubt or fear with God- you should KNOW that he is going to work it out." But God is not Santa. People pray and their loved ones still die or their children get taken and they get fired. I do know that whatever happens that God sustains me. But in specific situations we do not have a guarentee that God is going to act the way we think he should and so sometimes the best we can be is hopeful.

We found out today that to move out of our apartment is going to cost us almost three times what we were told and had been planning for. When I found out I was overwhelmed with feelings of hopelessness. Immediately I started trying to figure out where that money is going to come from. Here is something I learned after several hours of working, figuring, manipulating and sweating. Money doesn't care about all your hard work- it is what it is and it is impossible to make it grow just by being anxious about it. However- this I know for a fact- I have never been hungry, I have never been without a roof and I have never needed something that was not provided. So I choose hopefulness instead of hopelessness. Even though I don't see how it is going to work out I am holding out that we will be provided for abundantly. The how is where fear and doubt comes in. I can't see how God is going to work it out but he will. I hope.