WEEK 53: REFLECTING ON 2024

2024

The end of the year... and I am amazed by the journey. 2024 started with a nudge to share a story each week of how God has been connecting with people in their lives. The aim was to show the many diverse ways in which God speaks and I could not have predicted the variety in the outcome.

Some facts:

- 52 unique stories from 46 individual contributors

- A wonderfully diverse range of ways that God connects with his people, for example: farm life, holidays, and YouTube shorts

- Contributions based on God connecting through creativity, for example: art work, music, and poetry.

- Contributors from multiple different countries

- Unexpected patterns! Weeks 28 and 29 both refer to gifts from God, while weeks 44 and 45 were both from artists!

- More than five stories that show how God is with people in their or their loved one’s health diagnosis and three that speak of God’s comfort in the loss of a loved one.

At the beginning of the year, apart from stepping out in faith, I did not know where all of these stories would come from. I am so grateful to every single person who came forward. I am also grateful to those that gave me a considerate “no” and those who encouraged me to keep asking. There were times when it really looked like I didn’t have a story. One of my favourite times this happened, I was having coffee early on a Tuesday morning with a friend (about 9:30am). I told them I had no story for that particular day. About half an hour later, while we were still together, I received a message from someone giving me a story to send out that day!

As some of the stories recount, I feel like God has been teaching me through this process to trust. Trust that he will provide when I don’t see the way forward. I wrote, in the very first blog post, about how God had been revealing to me that he wants to work with us. I have seen that play out over the year. Sometimes means sending lots of emails and messages. I don’t want to gloss over the fact that this has sometimes been hard. As someone who likes to have a plan, it has been a real learning curve. I have felt disappointment and I have felt a little bit lost a times too.

However, I have also seen God’s goodness in this time, for example, in the last few weeks. I have been praying over the plan for Hope Hour in 2025. I have had time and headspace to do this because I never had more stories in the bank to send out than at the end of the year! I went from trusting week to week that a story would come in to suddenly having the last month all written up and ready to go. It felt like a miracle, and like I was being given the gift of time. Or, perhaps more accurately, that everything was happening in God’s right time!

2025 - What next?

I am so excited for 2025. The original idea behind Hope Hour was to encourage reflection on how we share our faith. I will still be sharing (and perhaps resharing!) stories though far less frequently. The stories, for all their beauty, have been a little one sided (i.e. they only show a Christian perspective). If you would like to share your story, please do contact me.

The new plan is to record twelve conversations about faith, between myself and a non-Christian friend, to be released monthly throughout 2025. We are seeking questions that you want answered! So please do share around and we will see what comes in.

We are looking for support to help us achieve this goal; please contact me if you would like to join us in this adventure.

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All that remains now is to say a heartfelt thank you. Thank you to those that have contributed. Thank you to those who have followed along this year. Thank you to those who have prayed for Hope Hour and encouraged me.

But, most of all, thanks to God for all that He has provided. Praise be His name and all the ways that He has shown up in His people’s lives this year.

With love and gratitude.

Until next time,