HOPE for the Holidays: Day 3

My mother, Verna Watson, around 1943

"Why are you in despair, O my soul? And why have you become disturbed within me? HOPE in God, for I shall yet praise Him for the help of His presence!" 
(Psalm 42:5)










Story of HOPE:

(I've told this story before, but as I prayed for you this morning, I sensed the Lord saying, "Jill, someone needs to hear this story again." Is it you?)

         Several years ago, my mother lay in a hospital bed very sick with cancer that had metastasized to her bones. One night, I dreamed the Lord said, "Jill, I'll open a window of time for your mother to feel good for a while, and then the end will come quickly." I feared that dream was only wishful thinking when the doctors told us it was time to call in hospice. My mother, on the other hand, assured me, "Jill, it's not time to call hospice. I'm going to get better, go home, and mow my yard on my Dixon lawnmower!" (Mother LOVED her lawnmower and working in her beautiful yard.)
        Well...two years later, here we are celebrating Mother's 80th birthday:

L-R - Mama, me, my Ben, niece Virginia, my brother Mark, and niece Alyson

Mother would continue to work in her yard until the Lord Jesus took her home to His heavenly gardens - five and a half years after the doctors told us to call hospice.

My mother and her dog, Tuck, at her lovely mountain home

O Father God, please help my readers HOPE in You; because regardless of dreadful circumstances, there is always HOPE in the name of Jesus!

"...those who HOPE in Me will not be disappointed!" (Isa. 49:23b)