There are many times in our life when we have circumstances that we don’t understand and are less than ideal. There are so many struggles we might have: mental health, temptation, addiction, or less than ideal family circumstances.

Why do we have to deal with those things? Where are the Lord’s blessings? Why is his timing so different from our own?

My husband works four hours away from where we live right now. He comes home for three days and then goes back to work for the other four. I am grateful that he has a job and that we get to spend as much time together as a family as we do. But every time he has to go back to work, it hurts. I just want him around.

This is the third time we’ve done this. The first time, he was in police academy for a few months. The second time was two years ago in the exact same situation, and it was so difficult that I gave up this house for a time and went back to living in the middle of nowhere and homeschooling my kids.

And we’re doing it again. And I don’t know when Dillon will get to live with us again, as there is a recession right now and the job market is difficult and I don’t see anything working out anytime soon. We’ve been job searching for over two years now (really, I don’t know if we ever stopped), and I don’t always have that much hope.

Hope

Therefore it is of faith, that it might be by grace; to the end the promise might be sure to all the seed; not to that only which is of the law, but to that also which is of the faith of Abraham; who is the father of us all,

(As it is written, I have made thee a father of many nations,) before him whom he believed, even God, who quickeneth the dead, and calleth those things which be not as though they were.

Who against hope believed in hope, that he might become the father of many nations, according to that which was spoken, So shall thy seed be.

And being not weak in faith, he considered not his own body now dead, when he was about an hundred years old, neither yet the deadness of Sara’s womb:

He staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief; but was strong in faith, giving glory to God;

And being fully persuaded that, what he had promised, he was able also to perform. (Romans 4:16-21)

Abraham was told he was going to be a father of many nations, and he was 100 years old and didn’t have any kids. It was simply an impossible promise. But Abraham believed in it anyway.

I can keep hoping. Because Heavenly Father has given me assurances, and He will bless me. I may not understand the timing, but I don’t have to ever give up.

Abraham never gave up hoping. So even if something seems absolutely impossible, we can always keep the faith that Heavenly Father will always give us the righteous desires of our hearts.

Hope can get you through the hours, the days, the months, the years, the decades. It never has to be extinguished. It never has to go away. There is no expiration date for the blessings the Lord has for us: they will always be there, and He will always love us.