By Mary Ohm, 2022 missionary (rider on Mississippi Route)
What do you do when you’ve lost all hope?
Where do you go or who do you turn to?
I think our culture is in a crisis of hopelessness and abortion is an attack on hope.
Recently I went through a season of life where I lost all hope. I believed that God couldn’t be trusted.
My hope in God meant I had the expectation of a certain outcome. My hope was conditional. And if God didn’t give me what I wanted or do what I expected of Him then I’m wasn’t going to trust Him.
Women facing an unplanned pregnancy may also find themselves in a season of hopelessness, thinking that abortion is the only way out of their situation or thinking they are unloved and uncared for. But those thoughts are not true and they are not from God.
I know that God is all-powerful and all-loving. He can change any circumstance. If he is not changing something at the moment, there is only one reason why—because He loves us too much to change our circumstance.
Until we learn how to place our hope in Him. Until we learn to trust Him. God has me right where he wants me.
When I was feeling hopeless, I asked God, “What’s going to happen? How is this all going to work out?” I think of a woman facing an unplanned pregnancy having similar thoughts…”How am I going to support this baby? Who is going to help me? I can’t do it on my own.”
I hear God reply, “You don’t need to know how, you only need to know who I am. Trust me.”
He is a good Father, and His love has no limits. I know that for certain after participating in Biking for Babies for a second year and encountering His Fatherly care for me and my team on the National Ride. He will not abandon me. Even though I abandon Him.
And He won’t abandon these mothers, fathers, and babies in their time of greatest need. We, at Biking for Babies, won’t abandon them either. That’s why we sacrifice and suffer—biking a crazy amount of miles in the July heat to show the world that they matter. Their situations, their struggles, their lives have value. Pregnancy resource centers meet and serve these vulnerable mothers and fathers everyday in their time of greatest need, and I know these centers won’t abandon them either.
I was able to visit my pregnancy resource center, Embrace, in my hometown in early May right when what we signed up for was starting to get real. I noticed the volunteers were all wearing t shirts that said, “Get your hopes up.” It was like God was speaking directly to me.
Get your hopes up, Mary.
There is reason to hope. Hope is having faith that you will be taken care of in the future. Hope lives in pregnancy resource centers. That’s what the staff and volunteers at these centers are focused on. Providing free services to those in need, and in turn, offering them a light of hope for them to see their future a little brighter.
If we truly want to renew the Culture of Life, as the Biking for Babies mission says, it has to start with me. The culture changes when I transform my own heart. When I learn how to trust and hope in Jesus, only then will I be able to give that abundant hope to others who have none.
“We even boast of our afflictions, knowing that affliction produces endurance, and endurance, proven character. And proven character, hope, and hope does not disappoint. Because the love of God has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.” –Romans 5:3-5
So keep going, because hope does not disappoint.
