Good Morning Gorgeous,

It’s a brand new day. A fresh new start. A Monday too! A brand new week lies ahead. A new dawn today will signal another beginning. The night has ended and the day has begun.

You have survived the night before and you will survive it again. You have survived the storm before and you will survive it again. Each morning is a reminder that we have been given a new chance to move ahead despite the dark that we are leaving behind.

What happens when the dark lingers awhile? What do you do when the storm has hit and it doesn’t seem to subside? The storm has raged on and on and in the beginning there was hope of survival, but as the winds continue to blow, the hope that was strong inside of you is beginning to flicker. The hope that the miracle is coming is looking as though it may burn out.

That hope in the Lord is your lifeline. Don’t let the wind, the rain, or the dark take your hope. Your hope in the Lord despite all the weather you see swirling around is the very thing that will sustain you through any storm no matter how long or how strong.

Your continual turning back to the Lord and hoping in Him is what will allow you to gain a new strength. A strength not everyone else has. A strength that the bible promises will lift you up like the wings of eagles.

I have read this verse so many times. It is dear to me because I was walking through a difficult season a few years back, and at the same time I was ministering to a woman who was homeless. She would come to church, but she wouldn’t enter. She would sit in the courtyard. I chatted with her a few times, and our relationship grew into a friendship. We would talk and share stories. We found out that we even attended the same Lutheran middle school. Anyway, here I was meeting with her quite often and praying with her, and she encouraged me one day with this very verse:

She told me that everything would be okay, and that when she heard this verse earlier in the week, God told her to remind me of it.

So when I read this verse, I think of my friend. I don’t see her anymore, but I think about her and the impact she made on me from time to time.

Even though I have read and heard this verse many times, I learned something new that makes this verse even more fascinating! Eagles do something that other birds don’t do. They use the storm to their advantage. They fly right into the face of the storm, lock their wings, and use the wind to carry them upward and ahead without having to exert much energy. The storm doesn’t adversely affect eagles like it does other birds. They use the winds to rise above the storm. While other birds are hunkered down in fear, the bold eagle is flying ahead soaring in the sky. Let us be eagles standing out from the crowd.

The Lord promises in His Word that if we will put our hope in Him, we will find NEW strength! We will mount up on wings like eagles. We will run and NOT grow weary. He will be our source of energy. He will be the reason we can face the storms that others can’t. He will be the reason we can keep going regardless of the weather.

We will be like the eagles, able to move ahead despite all that has come against us!

So this morning, turn to the Lord. Tell Him you are trusting in Him. You are hoping in Him. You are believing that He has the circumstances of your life safe in His Hands. Pray for renewed hope. The kind of hope that is so strong, it mounts you up on eagles wings!

Dear Heavenly Father,

Blow on the embers of our hope. Make the tiny flicker a strong flame. Help us to have the kind of steadfast hope in You that enables us to fly above the storms and circumstances. Help us to be lifted up and keep going without becoming weary. Give us strength for Monday and the full week ahead.

In Jesus’s name, Amen.