Friday, February 22, 2013

Hope Provides

Today was like any other day.  You checked off your to do list with excellence. But there was one unexpected thing that happened.  Your husband, who had been struck with some kind of strange illness, suddenly died.  

As the tears fall, there is nothing coming from your heart but groans and cries.  The weight of the world is on your tiny shoulders.  Your entire world has been taken away.  Life as you know it will be forever changed.  You look into the hurting eyes of your child and you silently scream, "What am I going to do now?"  

Through the blur of emotions you can't breathe.  You can't think.  You can't even think one thought.  You grieve.  Hopelessness sinks in as your reality has been served.  You are face to face with a deep chasm of grief.  

But God...provides.

You hear a knock at the door and a kind face asks to come in.  She has heard of your loss and wants to pray with you.  You are touched that someone cares. "How did they know?"

God knew...and sent hope.

Her husband was the wage earner and did the best he could.  There wasn't work often, but when there was, he worked.  There was little income.  God in his infinite mercy had made a way for them to live in the slums that was very close to a Bridge of Hope Center supported by GFA.  At least her child was being taken care of.  At least he would be fed today.

As hunger was gnawing a hole in her stomach, she let the kind woman enter her slum "house".  She was so embarrassed.  Her mind was racing with a full buffet of emotions and questions.  "If there is a God, then will you give me some food?"  The woman missionary said only a few simple words that she could hear for the moment.  

"Let God help you."

The GFA supported woman missionary offered the gospel.  The young woman accepted Jesus that day.  She opened the door for hope to come in and provide for her that was all new and fresh.  

In the next visit, the missionary brought a gift.  A sewing machine provided by the Critter Campaign, supported by GFA.  The missionary provided a new way to make an income in her poverty.  It was explained that the sewing machine was a gift from God that was provided by someone on the other side of the world that loved God too.  Because of God's love and provision for her, she could now see how to make a simple and modest income to provide for her family.

Hope provides.

When giving to the Critter Campaign, you are providing hope.  The families that are recipients of the gifts given are reaching the unreached and helping them find Jesus and hope.  Each gift is delivered with the gospel.  Each gift meets a desperate situation and provides hope, heart and healing.  

God, with the help of you and GFA brings hope to the lost.  God brings and births hope in the most hopeless of hearts.  God brings provision in the most desolate of slums.  

Ps. 42:11 "Why are you downcast, O my soul?  Why so disturbed within me?  Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God."       

God...Provides Hope.


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