If we could actually meet for coffee, I think I’d want to know this from you, my friend. How are you, really? How are you managing your stress and anxiety? How are you finding peace and a sense of purpose today? How is it with your family being all under one roof doing all the things from home? How is your bank account and your job?

Since I can’t sit across from you, eyeball to eyeball, I’d like to do it as I write here. Processing a crisis that we’ve never faced before? Well, there’s no rule book. There’s no do this, but don’t do that. We’re all navigating this thing at the same time together.

So, what’s the one thing you and I need at a time like this? HOPE.

Finding Hope

We need hope that God is still in control, even as our world spins out of control.

We need hope that it will end.

We need hope that God will make it all right.

We need hope that we’ll be safe.

We need hope for lost jobs and shrinking bank accounts.

We need hope that we won’t kill the people we are staying home with by the time this is all over.

Back when life was like it always has been, I did something at the beginning of March that I’ve been doing for the last year. I attended my networking group called REFINE. Each month, women who own their own business gather for encouragement, equipping, and connecting. And part of that time includes God’s Word. For the month of March our verse was…

When I first heard it, it stayed with me. I wasn’t particularly needing hope at the time, but I applied it to One Foot Coaching and to my website business I just relaunched with a friend. I applied it to my friendships, my church, and even my home. I knew I wanted to stick around and see what God will do.

It was true then, and it’s true now. While our future in uncertain and if I’m perfectly honest with you, I just want an end date. I’d like to Enneagram type 3 the whole thing, and hunker down for a couple of weeks and then let’s get back to normal. But today, we don’t know. We don’t know how much it will spread. We don’t know how long we’ll be asked to stay home. We don’t know if our economy will bounce back.

And so you and I? We’re left with the unknowns. The places where all we can do is hope.

Cultivating Hope

The reality is that hope is found in no one else but Jesus and His Word. We can hope in our government. We can hope in the experts. We can hope in our friends, or our health. But true hope…it’s found in Jesus + the Bible.

That verse I heard at the beginning of March? I can’t stop thinking about it. Mostly because it’s no longer about that next customer or just my friend. It’s about all of us together. It’s about trusting God in the midst of fear and stress and anxiety. It’s about sticking around to see what God will do. And oh, He’ll do it.

In the NIV, that verse says that we will wait in hope for the Lord. We need to wait and walk and live in hope. We need it our normal times, but we especially need it now. So how can we cultivate hope?

Feeding our soul

The best thing we can do to find hope in our uncertain times is feeding our soul with God’s truth. Spend time in His Word. Dig that devotional out and dust off the cover. Choose to feed on what’s true, and right, and noble.

I don’t know about you, but week 1 was filled with news programs - seeking to find out more. Seeking to understand more. Seeking when it might be over (I like to rush things). But I soon realized it wasn’t feeding my soul or keeping my mindset fixed on hope and God and His power.

Make spending time with Him in His word a priority as we accept his invitation to have hope and be hope in the world.

Choosing to see good

There’s a lot to focus on right now. We can focus on the unknowns or how bleak it feels or we can focus on what we can control and on what’s good. Where is God showing up in all this? What good has God been up to? What good have you been up to?

One of my favorite podcasters, Annie F. Downs is doing a daily podcast with another Christian leader and everyday they talk about everyday heroes during COVID-19. They talk about people rising up. They talk about people doing ordinary things to serve one other person. They talk about the blessings we still enjoy as we walk with God.

Making a list of what I’m thankful for and praising God for the good stuff doesn’t negate your feelings. It shifts our focus to what we can be thankful for. It shifts our focus to the good in the midst of this crazy situation. It shifts our hearts to live with the tension of joy and sadness.

Stay connected

The hardest part of all this is the feeling of isolation. We’re isolated from the people we typically see everyday. We’re isolated from doing some of the things we would normally do.

But cultivating hope means being intentional about where we find hope. And we find hope in the midst of God’s people. People who may be up when you are struggling or vice versa. People who can remind of us of the truth in God’s Word. People who can support us when we’re facing losses and grieving and wanting to know in a sea of unknowns.

I don’t know about you, but my community is everything. And I’ve had to get creative. Like calling or face timing one of my other single friends so we both see another person each day. Gathering some of the One Foot Community on Zoom to catch up and pray. Get creative with the ways you can stay connected, stay encouraged, and cultivate hope together.

The last few weeks is teaching us a few things, isn’t it? We’re learning to embrace the slower pace. Walks with our dogs. Calling our friends. Taking each day as it comes. Cultivating hope one Bible verse, one conversation, one prayer at a time.

Friends, if you want to stay connected to God’s Word and other Christian women, find your people. And if you’re looking for your people, One Foot is sponsoring our first online Bible study on the book of 1 Peter starting Monday. Join us for study, learning, prayer, and connection.

Learn more about our online Bible study here

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