Hope Begins with Prayer

That sounds like such a simple statement, doesn’t it? Hope begins with prayer. We all know this, or at least we should, and yet many times we pray and pray without the smallest amount of hope. I am one of those people who always seemed to have hope. Hope is one of the first things we lose when things get tough. Many people have given up hope at this moment because it appears there is no hope.

Prayer can bring that hope back, maybe even just a small amount of hope. All it takes is a single prayer, one that you put your whole heart into. I know that the world is in a confusing state right now. I know there seems to be little hope and that many people don’t even know where their next meal is going to come from. The world is in a state that we have never been in before. At least many people haven’t. Most people never know what it means to go hungry, to wonder if you will fill your belly.

Growing up, we were working middle class. We had food, but towards the end of the month money got tight. That is when spaghetti would be on the menu more often. We could eat that and get full without spending a lot. When my father got sick, the first time I was in high school. I remember he was out of work for about two months right around the holidays. My mother had to sell all the bedroom furniture to pay the bills. There were no presents that year, and we weren’t even sure we were going to have a Christmas dinner. I remember someone from the church bringing food to the house.

My mother was so ashamed that we didn’t have bedroom furniture that she kept all the doors shut and the curtains drawn closed. In fact, she put blankets on windows so no one could see anything. We slept on pallets on the floor. No one in our town knew we needed help. The church knew that my father was sick and they brought the food to help when my mother was at the hospital. They would never know how much that food meant to us. That without it we would have gone without for several days.

My older brother was working cleaning horse stalls to make money, and I was babysitting as much as I could to help with the smaller things. We made sure that the younger two were fed, bathed, got to school on time, and got them each one gift. Money was tight, but once my father recovered our finances did. He could return to work and it took a month or two, but things got better. Prior to him being released, my mother purchased some beds from the Goodwill.

I’m sharing this memory with y’all because one thing that never changed throughout all of this was my faith and hope in God. Back then it was stronger, and I knew that God would see us through. Presents didn’t matter, beds didn’t matter. We were all together and while our parents couldn’t my older and I took care of things. My mother spent every day at the hospital. Most nights too. Not that we weren’t important so much as she was lost without my father there. She knew that we would take care of the younger kids. They were younger, but not by a lot. The youngest is only four years younger than me.

We said our prayers and every night I said extra ones. I thanked God that he kept us together and gave us what he did. I knew that he was teaching my older brother and I to be self sufficient and how to overcome trials. I told none of my friends at school what was going on other than my father was in the hospital sick. I wasn’t ashamed but felt I needed to stay quiet for my mother’s sake.

God’s presence was there for me every day. I could feel him and the hope that I had was because of the prayers that I sent to God everyday. I prayed that we were doing the right thing. I prayed for help getting through it all and for my father to get better. I prayed for my mother to have the strength to get through this.

Luckily, that time my father did recover and we got through it. Just as we always did when the times were difficult. God kept us together and we appreciated the things we did have a little more.

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DO YOU BELIEVE HOPE BEGINS WITH PRAYER? WHY OR WHY NOT? SHARE YOUR THOUGHTS WITH US IN THE COMMENTS PLEASE.