“One of the first lessons a pilot learns is to trust his instruments over his feelings. A pilot’s feelings may mislead, but his plane’s instruments provide him the true information to keep him safe and focused.

Life sometimes feels like a flying in a storm, doesn’t it? We bump up against difficult circumstances, find our faith shaken by loss, lack, or trials; & struggle to reconcile the feelings we experience with the wisdom we know from scripture.

We reach out to social media & blogs like air masks to maintain some semblance of control when what we need is the lifegiving air of our hope in Christ.

But what does that mean? To ‘find our hope in Christ?’

When people talk about hope, it’s usually in uncertain terms. We hope that thing happens. We hope that situation changes. We hope, but we wait to know the outcome.

And since we can’t be sure of what will happen next, our hearts are tempted to look at our circumstances & assess God’s faithfulness to us by the state of our current realities.

‘Is there enough money in the budget?’ ‘Are my kids healthy?’ ‘Does my marriage feel strained?’ ‘Does God love me?’

But the result of circumstantial hope is despair. If we can’t be sure of an outcome, we feel an urge to self-promote & self-preserve in order to care for ourselves in the face of uncertainty.

The truth is, life is full of suffering, painful consequences of sin, & a general brokenness that affects every relationship, conversation, & trip to the grocery store with five kids under five.

But as Christians, we know hope in an unchanging & eternal Christ is a certain thing.

When we look at the cross, we see that God gave up his most precious Son to save his enemies who delighted in their rebellion. In Christ, we have a fixed point of God’s faithfulness to us.

If God has given us all that we need through Christ, will he let us falter when we grow weary in training defiant children or haven’t slept in seven months? When the weight of our feelings are crushing & we can’t see if we’re flying right-side up or upside down?

No, mama, he will not. Because Who we hope in was & is victorious.”

The truth is: we may sometimes feel helpless in motherhood, but because of Christ, we will never be hopeless.