How to Have Hope
by Drenda Keesee
We had weeds growing through the broken windowpanes of our small, broken-down 1800s farmhouse.
Weeds!
But since we barely had money for food, there was absolutely no budget for home repairs. In fact, everything seemed to be either broken down or breaking down in those days.
We were in a financial pit.
I’ll never forget when my mother called one day and asked how we were doing. I told her we were doing great, but she knew better.
“Is that so?” she questioned. “Go to the refrigerator and open the door,” she told me. “What do you see?”
With quivering lips, I managed to sputter out the words, “A jar of empty mayonnaise!” as I choked back sobs.
You may know part of my story, but my husband, Gary, and I had made plenty of mistakes with money in those early years of our marriage and raising our family. We worked hard, but we just couldn’t seem to get ahead. We found ourselves in a financial mess, owing on 10 maxed-out credit cards, three finance company loans, two car payments, back taxes to the IRS, judgments, and liens, and $26,000 to relatives.
We lived that way for NINE very long years.
Year after year the…
…debt would just keep piling up. And Gary was sick in those days, too. The stress of our situation made him anxious and fearful.
We were believers, but we were really struggling.
I share all of this with you to let you know that I know what it’s like to fight to keep your hopes up when you’re facing situations that seem completely hopeless.
No matter what you’ve faced or are facing, you can have hope.
When we hit rock bottom of our hopeless situation and cried out to God, He started changing the way we thought about the Kingdom of God and about ourselves. But every day was still a fight to keep our hopes up. I did the one thing I could do to fight—I put Scriptures and the promises of God everywhere.
I’ve shared before how I used to run into the bathroom when I felt depressed or when I was throwing myself a pity-party (because it was my only quiet place with five children). So, I even put Scriptures there.
I needed those constant reminders of HOPE—those constant reminders that we wouldn’t be in the wilderness forever—that we were headed somewhere else, somewhere better.
You can have hope for your somewhere better, too.
God created you to hope and to dream!
You don’t have to let life knock the wind out of your sails! You don’t have to lose hope when you face obstacles, stress, discouragement, or disappointment! And you don’t have to listen to any voices that say, “You could never do that;” “You don’t deserve to be happy;” or “Look at all of the mistakes you’ve made,” whether it’s the voice in your own heart or the voices of others!
You CAN get your hopes up and see the promises of God come to pass in your life!
God loves you, and He wants you to live a happy, hope-filled life, and so do I! It’s time for you to stop letting life pass you by! It’s time for you to get your hopes up for ALL God has for YOUR life.
~Drenda
ps…Are you looking for a good church? Be sure and listen on Saturday evening or catch the 3 services on Sunday for Faith Life Church!
Drenda Keesee’s contagious zeal and humorous personal experiences help make her ministry of spiritual, emotional, and relational wholeness one that will bless your life and spark a new fire in your spirit.
A wife of over 30 years and a mother of five children, Drenda has ministered at churches, seminars, and conferences, and through the mediums of television and radio, for more than 20 years.
Her books, The New Vintage Family, Better Than You Think, and She Gets It are available wherever books are sold. In these heartfelt books, Drenda shares her personal journey and the life lessons that have brought her to where she is today, as well as practical answers that all people need to live a joyful life.
Drenda and her husband Gary founded Faith Life Now, a ministry designed to spread the message of freedom in the areas of finances, faith, marriage, and family. Tune in for their weekly messages here. Faith Life Now hosts conferences worldwide and sponsors both Fixing the Money Thing, which Drenda co-hosts with her husband Gary and Drenda.
Through their own life experiences, the Keesee’s have found the principles from God’s Word to be powerful and effective. At one point, Drenda was a young, suicidal feminist with no hope of ever being “good enough” for her own standards of perfection. She never wanted the “inconvenience” of a husband or children, and she was on her own path to success. But the stress of trying to achieve perfection and perform for love left her broken and used. She had success, but it was nothing compared to the pain and loneliness it had also brought.
That’s when God got a hold of her heart. It was there—at her lowest point—that she found the One who accepted and loved her, faults and all. Since that transformation, Drenda has had a passion to reach women who find themselves where she once was.
She married Gary after attending college, and there she found herself in a personal boot camp of sorts. She says, “I cried and told God, ‘I can do anything but be a wife and mother.’” She committed to learning how to do it God’s way. Through the many years of raising their children and struggling to make ends meet, Drenda learned from their mistakes. “I didn’t know how to be a wife and mother, but God saved our marriage, taught us how to parent our children for success, showed us how to have financial success, and then the irony of all ironies, He called us to ministry.” It’s truly because of these life experiences that Drenda can now share so many insightful principles for people who are now going through the same struggles.
