Hope from Haggai's Lips

image taken from biblepic website

This word.  Hope.  

on the heart, in the mind, with eyes waking............

This phrase......from God through Haggai.........."fear not"

fear clutching my heart yesterday while the boy was loaded onto the ambulance....  in school. with vomit and filth all over him sent that way. what is wrong with the parents? why are they not cooperating with the medical team and with our special ed team?  Is it the culture....their eastern religion  against......us? will my prayers for this special handicapped  Pakistani boy be heard? God do you hear me in this public school?  why can't they cooperate, why send him to school with vomit all over him, why can't they see he is medically fragile? why aren't they doing what the doctors say? they speak English! God....

my heart felt like it was breaking.......

.......our team of teachers was saddened.....the phone call was made...

...........we don't want to separate him from his family but he needs to be safe......deserves to be safe and handicapped or not he is a child......and God loves the little children and Jesus said let the little children come...........

yet I feared.

and on the way home I heard "hope. place your hope in Me and fear not".

and this morning over coffee and grapefruit and the mind whirling with all the before school tasks list I read the words from Haggai

"DO NOT FEAR!"

Fear...the opposite of hope.

Hope...the opposite of despair.

The Spirit of God.....it's always with us.........

.................He says so.  His Word is True. His promises deliver.

And where His Spirit is there is no fear.

And this brings hope.  When we fear, we anticipate dread..........and that isn't God's heart for any of us.

We can expect His Presence. His comfort, peace, good.  

That is hope.

Haggai knew....He spoke God's words with his own lips to the people of Israel while they were rebuilding the temple.  They were busy doing their own thing and forgetting about what God told them about priorities. God told them to rebuild so He could be glorified.  And He reminded them through Haggai's lips that He gave them a covenant when they left Egypt. His Spirit remained among them.

God's Spirit remains among us.

And little A------  He is our priority.  We want to "build him up"....our special education team, his medical team........and yet we are just human.

and his parents are a different religion.

But.....

Our living and One True God sees him.

God sees him. God loves him. And his Muslim parents. And it doesn't matter that they are Muslim and mom isn't allowed to speak directly to us.....it doesn't matter what economic level, educational level, cultural level, or spiritual level. God loves. Period.

He loves each one of us.  He loves A-----!!

And He hears our prayers.

And I can hope....I can pray for the parents to follow the guidelines.

I can hope.....that A------will recover physically so he can learn and be with us and yes he might always have hydrocephalus.  He might always have the mind of a young toddler with limited communication skills.  But....God loves him.

God sees him.

And this gives me hope.

I can place him in God's hands and trust that we will see A back at school.

Hope.......because the love of God has been poured out................