In recent days I've been reading the Old Testament book of Proverbs, and this morning I arrived at chapter 13. There were two verses that really stood out to me - perhaps because they are so reminiscent of my own situation at the moment.
One of them is the well known proverb in verse 12, which says: "Hope deferred makes the heart sick." I don't know what Solomon's experience had been when he wrote this, but when I read it I thought how true it is. I could so identify. It's discouraging to keep hoping and praying, day after day, for a new home to become available... and for that hope to be disappointed as I constantly bump up against closed doors. It makes you feel so helpless and so vulnerable.
But the second half of the verse says, "... a longing fulfilled is a tree of life," and vs 19 echoes that, saying, "A longing fulfilled is sweet to the soul."
The news yesterday that I could stay for a month at a missionary guest house was like having a physical weight lifted off my shoulders, even though it's just a temporary respite. I still need to keep looking for a permanent housing solution. Hope has been deferred, but now homelessness has been deferred too.
As I was praying, I was reminded of another proverb, not a biblical one. There's an old saying that, "deferred is not denied," and this knowledge allows hope to grow again.
I looked up "deferred" in the dictionary, and it says that the word means delayed or postponed. "Denied," on the other hand, means that something is refused; it will never happen.
Hope deferred can be really hard.... but it doesn't necessarily mean that what we hope for has been or will be denied to us. It just means that we need to hold on a little longer and keep trusting. I know that God has always been and will always be faithful, and so I choose to trust Him and to hold on to hope.
