The heart behind Hope Restored
About Karen
Walking beside weary hearts with Scripture, compassion, and hope.
I’ve learned that hope doesn’t always come from having an easy life. Sometimes it comes from discovering that God is still there when life is anything but easy.
I’m Karen Jenness, the creator of Hope Restored and author of Reclaiming Joy.
I didn’t create Hope Restored because I have life all figured out.
I created it because I’ve lived through seasons when I desperately needed hope myself.
I’ve experienced divorce, heartbreak, difficult relationships, grief, major life transitions, and the kind of loss that changes you. I’ve had to start over more times than I ever imagined I would.
I’ve also experienced God’s faithfulness in ways that are deeply woven into my story.
I’ve seen prayers answered in unexpected ways. I’ve watched God provide when I couldn’t see how things would work out. And I’ve learned that faith doesn’t mean we won’t walk through storms. It means we don’t walk through them alone.
When I Lost My Way
There came a season when I was simply exhausted.
After years of carrying one thing after another, I found myself at a point where I had lost myself. I didn’t recognize the woman staring back at me in the mirror—a sad, lost, hopeless version of myself.
I had spent so much time surviving that I had forgotten who I was.
I was grieving, overwhelmed, and struggling to see a way forward.
I didn’t need someone to tell me to “be positive” or “just be happy.”
I needed something deeper—a way to find hope when I couldn’t see any.
I returned to Scripture. I prayed. I reflected on who God says I am—not the lies the enemy had tried to make me believe. I began paying attention to God’s presence in the middle of ordinary moments and to the things that helped me breathe again.
And slowly, I began to climb out of the darkness.
I didn’t suddenly have all the answers.
I simply began taking the next step—with God.
How Hope Restored Began
As I worked through my own healing, I started putting together the practices, reflections, Scripture, and encouragement that were helping me.
What began as something I was creating for myself eventually became Reclaiming Joy.
And somewhere along the way, I realized:
“Maybe what was helping me could help someone else, too.”
Hope Restored grew from that realization.
It’s for the woman whose life didn’t turn out the way she thought it would.
For the woman who is grieving something—or someone.
For the woman who doesn’t recognize herself anymore.
For the woman who loves God but is still hurting.
For the woman who doesn’t need another person telling her to hurry up and heal.
She needs a place to breathe.
A place to begin again.
What I Believe
I believe God has not left us.
Not in our grief.
Not in our heartbreak.
Not in our uncertainty.
Not in the seasons when we cannot see a way forward.
We belong to Him.
He holds our lives in His hands.
Our circumstances may change. People may leave. Plans may fall apart. The future may look nothing like what we imagined. But God remains God through all of it.
We are not our own source of hope.
We need Him.
And He is a good Father. He loves His children. He sees what we cannot see, knows what we cannot know, and holds our future with a wisdom we will never have on our own.
I believe God can take even the things that have broken our hearts and, in His hands, turn them into something that brings healing, purpose, and ultimately glory to Him.
He wastes nothing.
That doesn’t mean every painful thing was good.
It means God is good—and He is powerful enough to redeem what was meant for harm and bring something beautiful from it.
I believe healing doesn’t always happen all at once.
Sometimes it happens one breath, one prayer, one Scripture, one sunrise, one small step at a time.
But we don’t take those steps alone.
God is with us. God is holding us. And He will never stop being faithful.
That is the heart behind Hope Restored
Pointing weary hearts back to Christ, where hope is restored and identity is found.
A Little More About Me
I’m a Christian, a mother, an author, and a woman who has learned—often the hard way—that starting over doesn’t mean starting from nothing.
I work in the wellness field, where I have the privilege of caring for people in very personal ways. My professional life has taken me through different seasons and careers, but the thread running through all of them has been the desire to help people feel cared for, seen, and encouraged.
My story has taught me that our worth isn’t determined by what we’ve lost, what we’ve done, what someone else has said about us, or how broken we may feel.
Our identity is found in Christ.
And when we remember who we belong to—that we are loved, chosen, and held by God—we can begin to find our way forward.
If you’re walking through a difficult season right now, I hope you’ll know this:
You don’t have to have everything figured out.
You don’t have to know what tomorrow holds.
You only have to take the next step.
And you don’t have to take it alone.
— Karen