A Daughter Named Hope

I’m so excited to share this experience with you all! Are you ready?

On March 28th of this year, I had a dream. In the dream, I had a daughter! She was so perfect! She was about 18 months old. The dream was completely joyful! 

I woke up from this amazing dream feeling so sad. I long for a daughter. Everything within me longs for a daughter. It was a hard reminder of what I didn’t have. I did share the dream with a friend and ask her to be praying specifically for me and this dream. 

Fast forward to September. I saw a Facebook post from Waiting for Baby Bird, an infertility support group I love! The post was asking what is one word that I would use to describe August, and what is one word I felt God was giving me for September. Immediately, the word “Hope” came to mind! 

How exciting to feel like God told me specifically to Hope! So I hoped and hoped for something amazing to happen. I assumed that the word “Hope” meant we could be hopeful in our efforts to build our family. Each day of September slipped by and with each day my frustration grew!

Why would You give me the word “Hope” if You weren’t going to move? You know how hard it is for me to hope! Why would You tell me to hope only to crush me?

I spoke with a few friends about my near hatred of the word “Hope” after this crushing month. I knew that God is still good, but I was bitterly disappointed.

About a week later, a new friend messaged me that she had written a letter for me. She commented that she was nervous to give it to me, but felt strongly that God wanted me to hear the words.

Several days later I finally saw her and received the letter. As I read it I burst into tears. You see, she is truly a new friend. She doesn’t know much of my story. She doesn’t know how deeply I long for a daughter. She didn’t know that I had a dream about a daughter. She didn’t know any of these things! And that is how I feel so confident that she was truly hearing from God!

Her letter started off with general encouragement, including the push to hold on to the God-given word “Hope”. But then this is what came next, and it completely broke me.

“In the stillness of the day I felt Him say that you will have a daughter, and you are to give her the name Hope. I know not how or when she will come into your life, but I believe she will.”

Amazing! Absolutely amazing! Immediately, I remembered the dream I’d had in March and had to share this with the same friend! I’m so glad I still have our messages from back then! 

It was such a fun thing to share this God story with both sides of our family and close friends. They all felt very similarly, that this was a legit word from God for us. How very exciting! 

It was a week later at church when God moved again! I wasn’t feeling well, so I went to stand in the back by a close friend. She instinctively held my hand as they closed the sermon with prayer. She looked at me and just said confidently, “never ending Hope!” I just smiled and started sharing my story with her and another friend! 

When God moves, I can’t stop talking about it! So as I excitedly told them about my letter and the culmination of having a daughter named Hope my friend started to freak out! I wasn’t sure what was going on, but she was beyond words from my story. And then she told me that moments ago when she was holding my hand during prayer, she had one thing running through her mind: 

“A daughter named Hope! A daughter named Hope!”

She couldn’t believe it! I was jumping with joy and excitement! Our God is SO good! He has confirmed His word over and over again. I’m over the moon with His goodness. 

While I was sitting there, completely angry with Him, He was working to speak to me

through His own daughters. It takes a lot of courage to speak out something like that. I’m so glad that they did share with me. 

Just like the letter, I also don’t know how or when I will hold my Hope in my arms, but I have so much confidence that someday, I will have my sweet Hope.