“When our questions make us doubt God’s heart, our pain can lead to bitterness and bondage. Yet in the security of our relationship with Christ, God wants us to ask the hard questions and look for answers that usher us into the depths of His redeeming love. He wants us to live in the promise that He offers hope for our future despite the pain of our past. He knows our past and our pain can actually lead us to His plans and hope for our future.”
from Chapter 4, A Confident Heart
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Our Word for the week: HOPE
(Download in a PDF or download in MSWord). Please print it and post it everywhere so you can remember that God’s love can satisfy the thirst of your soul!
HIS Word for us this week:
“May the God of hope fill [me] with all joy and peace as [I] trust in him, so that [I] may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.”
Romans 15:13, NIV
Today’s Assignment:
Start or continue reading chapter 4. Remember, take your time and highlight or underline sentences that resonate in your heart.
Connecting in Community:
Let’s commit to memorize this week’s verse together! If you are in, leave a comment by clicking on “share your thoughts” and tell us how you plan to memorize it. I’m writing mine on my mirror and on a ceramic plate in my kitchen for the week.
I’m still sick today but getting better slowly. Would treasure prayers for total healing. Meeting with video editor today to finalize this week’s message so I can share it with you. I’ll be back with a question or something else to we can talk about soon. I’ll just add it to this post (but I’ll email to let you know when I do. Praying for you today!
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I’ve had to deal with forgiveness as well and I can honestly say it is something that has to be done in order to move forward in life.
“There it is again”, I said as I saw Jeremiah 29:11. I have claimed this scripture for two of my precious grandson’s who were placed for adoption in 2007 and 2008. As hard as it was, my husband and I had to support our daughter in her decisions for placement. I knew God had wonderful plans for these two little boys as they were placed in loving Christian families. But where do I go from here? How do I totally heal from this and glorify God through my pain? God gave me Jeremiah 29:11 for myself, also. He uses our pain for His glory if we allow Him to. Through these untimely pregnancies and adoption placements God is bringing me up out of the ashes. But I wonder if I will always struggle with “grandparents just don’t do that to their grandchildren.” I am trusting my God for strength to choose to pray His promises when these moments come. God’s timing is perfect. He knew I needed this Bible Study and what a blessing it is. Thank you Renee for allowing God to use you. What an inspiration you are.
Hoping you and your family are feling better and praying for your speedy return to full health for you all. God bless you Renee
sorry meant feeling xx
My life verse! On Hope101.net, I interview recognized guests on how to process emotional pain. Renee was one of my first interviews. You can find her sharing on the archived pages of Hope101.net. As believers we never lose hope, it just gets buried under the pain. Thank you Renee for being a voice of hope on Hope101.net and through this amazing study…A Confident Heart!
Seeing so many people with so many needs, but nothing is too hard for God! Please pray for my husband, Mike, and I as we go through a financial crisis. We need the wisdom and help from above and for the Lord to keep us in the center of His will. Many decisions to be made. Thanks for your prayers! Renee, we will continue to pray for complete healing for you!
I recently read an inspiring thought from Joel Osteen that is neat to pass on. He in effect compared God to A GPS system. The GPS will tell you which direction to go, how far left to go, whats ahead. If you miss a direction, it will recalculate the directions for you. God has set our destination. With a heart to please him, we still may go in the wrong direction, not go far enough as His instructions say, nor head warnings as to what is ahead. He has already recalculated a different route , sometimes many times(without hollering, berating, or putting us down) He is still leading us there. He is soooo patient and loving. I am so glad that He is leading me. He is stronger, wiser, more loving and so filled with wisdom. To know that He is guiding is so comforting!
Dear Tera, I have been in your place so many times. I am praying that our Lord will grant you the healing and rest that you need today. This cold/flu bug is nationwide it seems, but know that he is the great physician and He alone can heal your heart, mind and body in Christ Jesus. Rest in the promises that Renee has in Chapter 12 that Renee keeps hinting about.
Shalom ~
I so am having a dfficult time today, i woke with a horrible headache and my throat is hurting apparently so is my heart. As i was reading chapter 4 the Lord is showing me some areas that i had not known were in need of repair. I have for a long time have been pushing some difficult memories down so that they would not hurt anymore and in doing so i pushed other memories down too. Now they are beginning to surface and like you Renee i am not wanting to sink into a hole of depression. However, like our memory verse reminds me: that God will fill me with all joy and peace as i trust in him, so that i may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.
Thank you Renee. Praying for healing for you! Enjoying this journey and seeing God speak to me in so many different ways about choosing to not throw away my confidence…even when life and people in this world mistreat us. I’m reminded of my own ability to mistreat and harm others and my heart is humbled to stay within the loving, merciful hands of God. I’m realizing the choice I have to obey and cling to truth during difficult emotions and trust Him!
I’m focusing on obeying Him and living in victory today–even though some circumstances are not as I would like them in my life…I know there is hope for my future and I am trusting that God is working it all out for my good…for I am loved!
I’m also thinking alot this weekend about forgiveness and have found great insight in another book http://www.mendingthesoul.org and how we move on even when reconciliation is not possible…when the other party doesn’t meet us at the feet of Jesus…there is still hope–God is here to strenghten me and help me and uphold me on this path that He has for me! I’m learning not to trust in my circumstance but trust in my loving God. Guarding my heart from the people in the world who will never be able to love me like my God does–by allowing God to fill me first, His love covers and protects my wounded heart! The God of hope is filling me with joy and peace as I trust in Him…so that I can overflow with hope! Also, no coincidence that this week’s Girflriendit Radio has a special guest sharing about her journey with forgiveness http://girlfriendit.com/?p=3893
It’s gonna be good!–God’s good timing for my heart too:)
Thank you! Will pray for you right now and I love the plate in the kitchen idea.
I think sometimes we get so caught up in our situation we forget that there is HOPE. I am so grateful for my heavenly father who loves me and keeps me in His arms when times seem dark and lonely.I pray for healing for the wonderful women on these pages who are going through some trials with their health right now. God brings us together for a reason. Trust in Him. Our hope is in you Lord all day long. Help us to keep our hearts and minds turned towards you.
Dear Robin who is in an inpatient program right now. The Holy Spirit nudged me just a little bit ago to let you know that i am praying for you. Thoughts are with you day and night. Week 4 of our study is about HOPE. Hang on to hope: “But I will hope continually, and will yet praise Thee more and more. Psalm 71:14 KJV Robin, please pray the ‘praying God’s promises’ prayer at the end of chapter 4 often. It is healing and comforting. God’s peace and hope to you!
Dear Bridget, I hope you have gone to sleep since your post showed that you wrote this an hour later than I am writing, but I want to tell you that I love your and so does our God who knew us before the foundation of the earth. When I was younger I did the same thing as you with my weight and like you when I had my first pregnancy God healed me of the need to be perfect. That is where our stories change, because I was not married to a wonderful man and I released my baby for adoption…that was 25 year ago Feb.25th.
I did marry later that year (not to the father) and we have 4 wonderful children. I still find trouble seeing my worth in God’s eyes. I have a 17 year old daughter who thinks I am “stupid” for the adult decisions I make. She is taking Child Psychology classes at the college,which has not helped her opinion of me. Daily I have to see my worth in God’s eyes. Not as man see, but as God see, He looks at the heart. My heart in covered in the blood of Jesus who saved me.
I would like the next person who reads this to pray for me. Along with the day to day struggles of 4 teenagers, being the sole support of my family (my husband doesn’t work and isn’t looking anymore)… I have a cold too. I am really tired, but have had trouble sleeping. I am taking college classes and need my brain fog to lift. Thanks you.\
I will turn off my computer and try to sleep. B)
Deena, i will pray with you and for you to our awesome Father God. Before bedtime and any time, cast all your worries and anxieties on Him. “Cast your cares on the LORD and He will sustain you, He will never let the righteous be shaken.” Psalm 55:22 and “Cast all your anxiety on Him because He cares for you.” 1 Peter 5:7 (NIV) My daughter says to me: ‘Mom, blow out those worries and let yourself be held in His arms and stay there until you are calm and peaceful. Don’t keep them inside, it will affect your health.” It is calming to give the Lord what we cannot handle. As i have heard said: we do what we can in the natural and God will do the rest in the supernatural. With ‘our sister family’ in this Bible study, you will have prayers by women who will comment and by women who will silently lift up prayers for you. You are not alone, and you are loved by us and by the Lord with His unconditional love. This Bible study is ‘just what we all needed.’ Thank you Renee!
Oh Deena you are so loved, so wanted, so needed! Your story touched me. Even just having us all be open and honest on here is so healing in and of itself….it makes me realize that although each of our stories are so different, we aren’t alone….we aren’t apart from God and we aren’t apart from a community of believers. We all have been “there,” in someway shape or form….whether big or small….it’s a blessing to know I am not alone. Praying for you right now!
Deena,
I just read your comment…just wanted to let you know that I said a prayer for your strength. Hope your days get better and your load a little bit lighter.
Blessings,
Liz 🙂
Just wanted you to know I prayed for you too. Praise the Lord that when we are weak and weary we have the prayers of fellow Christians to lift us up. I prayed for the Lord to give you strength and wisdom to deal with your teenagers. You are truly loved by our Heavenly Father and remember He can make a way where there seems to be no way. May you feel uplifted and loved with God’s arms around you and His armor surrounding you and protecting you from everything satan tries to throw your way.
Just when I think I finished reading one of the chapters in this book that I thought was incredibly life changing and that it can’t get much better, along comes another chapter that kicks my butt (in a good way!) I’ve been wanting to write this since yesterday but didn’t feel it should be up as a lone post on facebook and didn’t want to comment on the last blog entry cause I didn’t want to reveal things to people who weren’t on chapter 4…Page 73 lists several scenarios of woman who have gone through so many painful things and daily live with the lies that satan fills their heart with. I wrote my own like me statement. Saying it out loud and admitting it is half the battle…
Like me, who wanted her whole life to be seen as attractive, desirable, beautiful and wanted. Me who was led down a painful road with a borderline eating disorder and an ongoing obsession with food and exercise that I constantly have to keep in check because I believed that my value and worth were in how thin I was, and how outwardly attractive I was.
I’ve come so far yet still have so far to go. The sad thing is, is that my whole life I waited to be called beautiful. To be the girlfriend and not just the friend. The point in my life where boys started expressing that I was desirable and wanted, happened to be the same point in my life when I started to dress more fashionably and had lost weight…so what else was I to think but that I was attractive, when I looked cute, and when I was thinner. Thinner….oh what defines thinner? That number on the scale could never be low enough. It was an obsession. I always wanted it to be be a little lower. The number on the scale would either give me permission that day to eat a little, or a lot depending on whether or not that number made me feel happy about where my weight was. I didn’t think weighing yourself 8-10 times a day was abnormal. Until one day I told my husband, and even as I heard myself say it I knew how wrong it was. He looked at me in shock and told me how unhealthy it was to weigh myself that often. To me it’s also sad, that this happened to me, as a grown, happily married woman….I love my husband. He is amazing, and still satan managed to ensnare me in a lie. A lie that grew so big, I had to dig way down deep to heal the hurt. It’s getting better. It’s getting easier. In many ways having a baby has been really hard for me to accept my postpartum body, but it’s also been healing. I prayed during my pregnancy that God would heal me of this fear I have of being unattractive to the world’s standards…standards? Our photoshopped standards? He has brought me so far. For as hard as a post partum body can be to accept I am confident that God has brought way more healing to me in this area because of pregnancy, than he ever could of without pregnancy.
Other things that have touched me so far in this chapter have been Renee writing about running from what she felt God say about her sharing her story with woman. For so long I’ve wondered what God has for me. As a mom I feel more alive and called to something than I ever have before. I love being a mom. I love managing our home. One thing that tugs at me a lot is actually women….I love encouraging them. Teaching newly married woman how to cook, etc or sharing tips with new moms or just providing a hug for those hard first few months as a new parent. I’ve often thought about writing. I enjoy speaking to woman or leading bible studies…..I hear satan speak lies to me about how I am not “fit” to do that type of work. I haven’t “gone through” enough. I have no training in writing or speaking etc. I don’t know what God has for me….no matter how ordinary I may see it, it’s not ordinary to God. Leading a simple bible study could be life changing to some if I allow God to speak through me in it. Anyway, I am praying about that. Trying to really seek out God’s heart and really trying to let go of my people pleasing tendencies. I already feel so much better about it and more confident in it.
My last thing that I have been working on today is the timeline of life’s painful memories. I have done this before but I don’t think I ever prayed through each one and just allowed time. I know this could take months, but it was encouraging to see it. Painful to write it. Healing to speak it out loud and let God wipe my tears away.
Enjoying going through this study with each of you friends!! I pray God brings so much healing and hope to each of your hearts!
Bridget I agree each chapter reveals something we have been holding onto and just thought it to be normal. I thank God for Renee’s obedience to answer his calling and write such an awesome book. It is truly mind and heart changing for me.
Bridget, I agree that each chapter has been amazing in it’s own way. Thank you for opening your heart and sharing with everyone. Your writing is encouraging. Blessings to you.
HI Bridget, thankyou for yoru encouraging words to me. that really blessed me to know God is using my story to bless others. You sound like an amazing and loving, encouraging woman and I bet that inner beauty shines right through you to the outside. Start looking at youself through Gods eyes and see what a beautiful, perfect creation He has made and encourage yourself the way you encourage others. God says you deserve it. Look at yourself in the miror and tell yourself what you would say if you were your bestest best friend trying to encourage her.
Blessings to you. xox
I’m on vacation….. and I’ve written the word, “Hope” and the Bible verse for the week on the stationary on the desk in my room. I intend to keep it in front of me and meditate on it throughout the day/week. I have prayed for your healing Renee and feel certain you will be well soon. Our God is an awesome one and I give Him the praise and glory. Thank you Renee for your faithfulness and service. May I be so willing.
Renee- Praying for God to touch you and heal you.
I am also doing an online study with Melissa Taylor using Lisa’s Book “Made to Crave”. One thing we do is fill in the blank. Part of the verse is written out and we fill in the blanks. I am going to do the same with our verses. I plan on leaving a few different fill in the blank sentences around the house and fill them as I come to them. I also am going to hand write the verse out and post on my Mirror and in my car. I love how we are praying scripiture prayers. Each week they have been the perfect timed prayer for my life. I am also praying them over my family and close friends. Especially for my 16 and 15 year old daughters. I want their hearts to be Confident and I am proud to say they both are so in love with Jesus ,he is creating within them a yearning for more of him. However, I believe praying these scriptures over them can only strengthen and protect their Confidence. Thank you Renee, the honest words you have shared in the book have brought such peace and insight ! I can hardly wait each evening to have my quite time and read the blogs and do the online lessons. Many blessings to everyone!
Blessed are you! Keep on keeping on. May God richly bless you more and more for your faithfulness.
Renee, I will be praying that you feel better soon. For the verse in Jeremiah about HIm knowing us, I printed it out and posted it on the mirror in my bedroom so I see it every morning. For this week’s verse, I am going to print it out or write it on paper, and put it in my planner, so I can see it every time I open my planner and look at my schedule. Thank you so much for the book, and all the time you have put into the study! I have been getting a lot out of it. I was wondering, does anyone else struggle with this?- sometimes when I read, I feel like I’m getting behind-I haven’t started chapter 4 yet- and sometimes don’t feel peace about it when I read, like the devil is trying to discourage me from reading. So I pray about it, but sometimes the feelings of unrest don’t go away.
Be persistent. God is faithful! You have a lot of sisters who will pray for you too.
Thank you, DanWel.ihen I am so frustrated by the drivel posted at so many sites I know that I can come here and find hope in your remarkable analyses of our human condition.
Hi Francois,There is an incompatibility between one used javascript by my plugin and the javascript of WordPress.I will push a patch soon this week in order to kill this bug.Thx for your report.
hey what's up with the "Please upgrade to a modern browser " that appears when using OPERA.OPERA IS THE MODERN BROWSER ON WHICH EVERYONE ELSE BORROWS IDEAS FROM …chrome sucks
I put the verse en my desk so I can see it during the day even at work.
Renne I´m Praying for you and thaks a lot for the nice picture of our word, I love it.
Praying for you!! Thank you soo much for the beauitful picture of the clouds that said Hope loved it !! Thank you for being willing do this Bible study for us women i’am being sooo blessed by this study no words can describe how it does!!! Joyce
Renee, praying that u get better this wk and that God continues to give u the strength to prepare and study for our Bible study. i loved the verses that u sent us this wk. i need to b reminded of Gods UNFAILING love for me each day…and that there is always HOPE for the future. I write out the verses on an index card and hung them above the sink so that i can read them daily. I have started reading Ch.4 and von relate to it already to the Why ??? that we have when hurtful things happen in our life and we don’t understand why. I love the verse in 2Cor1:3-4…as God answers us in “so that we can comfort those in trouble w the comfort we ourselves receive from God” I haven’t finished reading the Ch and answering questions 1-3…i hope to by tonite and look forward to the rest of the wk and meeting back on the blog.