Tag: hope

Infusing Hope into Your Life and Writing: A review of Lori Hatcher’s ‘Refresh Your Hope’

January 9, 2023

THE IMPORTANCE OF HOPE

Hope, second of the three great virtues named in 1 Corinthians 13, can be hard to come by, in life or writing. Refresh Your Hope, third in Lori Hatcher’s “Refresh” devotional series, reminds readers that the essence of hope is found, not in our circumstances, desires, or positivity, but in the character, work, and trustworthy Word of God.

Have you experienced moments (or seasons) of hopelessness? Do family members or friends, co-workers or acquaintances, express thoughts that negative circumstances in their lives have no remedies? 

News reports and analysts often present pessimistic reports about war, crimes, inflation, health, and other issues, suggesting no expectation that things will improve any time soon. And even a person with a usually sunny outlook may experience influences from this barrage of negativity. 

On the other hand, hope that ignores real circumstances opens us to charges of “pie-in-the-sky” or Pollyanna thinking. Where do we go to avoid both extremes?

REVIEW

In sixty short, readable devotions, Refresh Your Hope takes readers through stressful experiences like waiting, lack of productivity, loss, failure, seemingly futile efforts, pain, trials, sacrifices, prodigals, opposition, family conflict, questioning, aging, and more. In each, Lori shows through biblical texts, personal narratives, and anecdotes that God is the source and provider of hope.

Presenting clear, relevant examples why we may lose hope, she explains reasons to seek God to restore hope, through prayer, His Word, wise counsel and fellowship with godly believers.

As I read the stories Lori uses as examples, I was reminded of children’s and YA books that examine hope, or lack of hope. People without hope become stuck – sometimes paralyzed with fear, indecision, or depression. Negative expectations trap them in attitudes and behaviors that make seeing a way through impossible. Whether real people or fictional characters, they impact others in their sphere of influence with this outlook. 

God’s perspective, however, brings mercy, grace, and clarity to circumstances and ideas that can cloud our vision and block out paths to restoration, healing, and resolution. The claim that “Our hope is firmly rooted in God’s character and faithfulness to bring about a future good” may seem trite, but walking with Lori through trials she and others have endured shows that in bringing to God what may seem beyond hope, real people have found insight and strength.

How do subjects or characters in your writing reflect the need for hope, consequences of hopelessness, and means to finding hope in times of stress, pain, or loss?

Even very young children need stories that show how to take a disappointment and look for ways to find new reasons to hope. 

RECCOMENDATION

I recommend Refresh Your Hope as a resource for every writer: first, as a check for our personal outlook when confronted with hard situations, and second, as a guide for attitudes, outlooks, character development, and story arcs in the writings we offer to our young readers. 

GIVEAWAY

Lori will provide a personally autographed copy of Refresh Your Hope to one blessed blog reader. Please leave a comment and a winner will be chosen on January 12.

Lori Hatcher is the author of Hungry for God, Starving for Time: 5-Minute Devotions for Busy Women, Joy in the Journey, Refresh Your Faith, and Refresh Your Prayers*. Her ministry includes speaking and encouraging, as well as presenting workshops on writing and editing at writers’ conferences like Write2Ignite, Asheville Christian Writers’ Conference, and Blue Ridge Mountains Christian Writers Conference.  

A pastor’s wife, former magazine editor, and career dental hygienist, Lori homeschooled her two daughters and now enjoys her role as Gigi to four grandchildren. A native of Rhode Island, she resides in Lexington, South Carolina. 

Lori blogs at https://lori-benotweary.blogspot.com/  and on her website, https://lorihatcher.com/ Follow her on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/lori.s.hatcher  

*available from Our Daily Bread, christianbook.com, and Amazon. 

Deborah DeCiantis

Review by Deborah DeCiantis

Lessons in prayer for Christian writers – Part 1.

February 1, 2021

Scripture references: Psalm 5:3, Psalm 27:13-14, Romans 8:23-26

In these next few posts, I’d like to share with you some lessons that I’ve learned about prayer. As a Christian writer, I believe that every word I pen should be birthed from time spent in prayer before the Lord. This is what distinguishes Christian literature from works written by secular authors. Today, I’ll be focusing on the topic of developing patience in prayer.

Now, patience in prayer is something that I struggle constantly with. Unlike Richard Dawkins or C.S Lewis, my mind doesn’t stretch that far to wonder about answers to the big philosophical “whys” of life: Why does a good God allow people to suffer? Why doesn’t God heal everyone?

Neither am I worried about the “hows” of life. It’s amazing how many automatic search options come up when you type in the word “how” on Google!

More often than not, the questions on my mind frequently start with the word “when”. The big “When”. When will God answer my prayer? And, I’m ashamed to say that when I’ve prayed and prayed but haven’t seen the answer that I expect from God, two nasty little words begin to surface in my mind: “what if?”

“What if God doesn’t want me to have __ ?” (you can go ahead and fill in the blank!)

Or worse still, it’s easy to put the blame on God with this question: “What if it’s not God’s will, so that’s why __ happened?” (go ahead and insert a situation with a disappointing result here!)

No one ever likes to be made to wait. It’s just not in our nature. We’ve become a society that feeds on instant gratification of our desires. That’s why we have Google, so we don’t have to plough through volumes of encyclopedias to get our answers. That’s why we have phones with text messaging, so we don’t have to wait weeks for the long letter to arrive by mail. And that’s why, we’ve become even more impatient than ever before. It’s even filtered all the way down into sport! When the Olympics first started, I don’t even think they had the 100th of a second on the stopwatch!

If you’re told to wait for more than fifteen minutes on the telephone, would you hang up the phone or wait until you get to speak to the person at the other end? We’re so accustomed to saving time, because it’s ingrained in our culture that time equals money.

But the Lord doesn’t work this way. To Him, time equals character. And character that conforms to the likeness of Christ is all that matters (James 1:2-4). Opportunities to test our faith are chances that we’re given to grow in our endurance. The Lord cares more about you becoming the perfect representation of Jesus for the world to see than He is about anything else.

In all the verses that I’ve chosen about waiting patiently and expectantly, I’d like us to focus on Romans 8:23-26. The hope that we have to look forward to is that not only will we have full rights as God’s adopted children, we also will have new bodies. This is something we’re encouraged to look forward to eagerly (1 John 3:2-3). We’re God’s children now, but to have full rights is a whole other level. We’ll be judging angels. Who knows what other kingdoms we’ll get to rule over?

Very often, we’re so fixated upon the 70 or 80 odd years or so that we have in this life and spend all our time making ourselves comfortable on this earth that we completely forget about eternity. Let’s not be people who forget about the hope that we’ve been called to!

***

Author Bio

Ellice is a radiographer living in Melbourne, Australia who desires to share her faith through her writing. Since she was in her teens, she has always been passionate to write devotionals to mentor younger believers. You can visit her blog “Living Stones” to check out the other devotionals she posts here: https://theholygeneration.blogspot.com/ When she’s not typing away on her computer, she loves honing her green fingers (that’s the Aussie way of saying “green thumb”) and experimenting with food.

hope and honesty

Barking with The Big Dogs: Hope and Honesty for Children by Karley Conklin

April 6, 2020

“It is necessary to be hopeful to write successfully for children, yes, because children themselves are generically hopeful, but the quality of hopefulness is not an immature quality.” -Natalie Babbitt ( pp 42)

Natalie Babbitt’s book Barking with the Big Dogs is a collection of her essays and speeches written over several years. In all the various topics she focuses on, from types of fantasies to critical thinking to childhood itself, there are two major themes that pop up repeatedly: hope and honesty.

Hope is woven into the very nature of children’s books. Babbitt kicks off with an essay on happy endings and explains that children’s literature contains a quality of joy adult fiction lacks. In fantasy for kids, the belief that the world can and will be better is proven true. What is a happy ending if not a proof of hope? The villain can be defeated, the ordinary child can be a hero, and the world can be saved. Hope and optimism reign in children’s literature.

Does this mean that children’s books must present utopias?

Absolutely not. Natalie Babbitt claims that when authors try to write perfect worlds, they instead create worlds that are, “patently artificial, a placebo, lacking. . . consistency with the author’s philosophy” (37). In order to escape the one-dimensional depictions of life, Babbitt explains that authors need to write with “as much honesty and skill as we can muster,” (40).

She argues that we need to write stories that have flawed characters and flawed worlds, because flaws are part of human nature. But she also writes that we need to write authentically within our worldview. If we try to write what we don’t believe, we rob our stories of depth.

Herein lies the important message for Christian authors. For Christians, a huge part of writing truthfully is writing hopefully. Hope and honesty go hand in hand for us.

Natalie Babbitt misses this connection between the two. She writes, “it seems a peculiarly contradictory thing for the Bible to say in one place that truth is liberating when in another place it puts hope on a level with faith and charity. . . For hope and truth don’t always go together” (108).

However, hope and honesty are inseparable.

As Christians, the truth we cling to is our hope. God overcomes our greatest fears with His power and promises. The hope of eternity stands in defiance to death, the promise of God’s provision quiets our daily worries, and prayer itself brings us to God’s throne when we face trials.

Babbitt views as a contradiction something she doesn’t understand. She doesn’t recognize a solid hope. Her hope seems to be simply defined as the belief in possibility. She writes, “Life is infinitely more interesting when we can believe in the possibility of something wonderful just over the next hill” (110).

For Christians, hope is so much deeper. We know that something wonderful lies over the next hill. We know that the God of the universe is sustaining His creation. The son of God came to bring us life, and He’s coming again soon. His resurrection is the promise that everything broken will be renewed. A new heaven, a new earth, and a life forever with Him. What greater hope could we ask for?

Therefore, since we have such hope, the only honest way we can write is with that same joy. Hope and honesty should define Christian fiction.

Perhaps more than any other authors, we have the ability to write happy endings authentically. We believe in the greatest happy ending the world will ever know. The ultimate defeat of evil, ordinary people chosen by God for great tasks, and the world forever saved.

As we enter Easter week, may we reflect on the incredible hope that Jesus has brought to the world. May our hope and honesty in our writing be a light in the darkness.

Book Review:

What about the book itself? Natalie Babbitt’s essay collection wasn’t what I expected. While the essays usually focus on discussions around children’s literature, they also tap into Babbitt’s philosophy on life. Her words are instructional at times, but are more personal at others. If you choose to read this book, pick it up as an opportunity to hear the perspective of a fellow author. You’ll learn far more from her words if you view it as a conversation rather than as a lesson.

Overall, I give her book 3  1/2 out of  5 stars. She makes some strong points, but there are still lulls in the book, as well as points that seem out of place or repetitive.