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He then reached down from heaven,
all the way from the sky to the sea.
He reached down into my darkness to rescue me!
He took me out of my calamity and chaos
and drew me to himself,
taking me from the depths of my despair!
Psalm 18:16 (TPT)

Hopeless

When I was a little girl I lost my dad. Not because he died, but because he chose everything and everyone else over me. I didn’t know him and I didn’t want to. Years went by and many, many bad choices later, I gave up.

I had to find a reason to keep living or ultimately and forever give up. Hope was dying. I was lost.

Hope Found

After some pretty desperate searching, I found hope. I was introduced to Faith in God through surrender to Jesus. I knew that I knew that I had found the source of hope I could draw on, surely life would never be hard again!

Years later I found myself married to a good man, three beautiful kids and beginning a new journey. New town, house, school, and baby steps into a new ministry. We were ready for this, full of hope and ready to start a new church. Then the diagnosis, cancer. The doctor may as well have stabbed me with a knife.

Hopeful and Hope Lost

I hoped for healing, I hoped for relief from the anxiety and I hoped I could wake up the next day and somehow this wasn’t my life. I hoped in vain. He died. I was lost again.

I lived in a fog for months, I didn’t want to go on without him. How did the world keep revolving, it should have stopped. It wasn’t supposed to end this way! What was I supposed to do now?

I fell into a rut. I did what I had to for the kids, but I hardly ventured out of the house. The numbness began to fade but I begged it to return. Reality was too hard.

Hope Dimmed

I faced a choice again, find a reason to keep living or ultimately and forever give up. This time I knew different. I knew that although it wasn’t tangible, hope was there. I had the hope of hope. The promise deep, deep inside that I wasn’t alone in this. I couldn’t feel it but if I closed my eyes and surrendered it was there. No eloquent words, but with tears and a heart pleading for the pain to end.

I began to notice I was being looked after. I must have mattered still. It was like a Hand nudging me in the small of my back leading me on into a life I still couldn’t fathom. A still small voice that I recognized. The day had come that the pain didn’t scream the loudest. I would go for walks listening to the same songs over and over again. Songs of worship that assured me that God knew my pain, He felt it too, He was close.

Hope Emerged

God is a Gentlemen. He waited with longing and grace for me to choose Him again. What was my choice? To look grief in the eye and let it break my heart. It was hard, but it was where hope emerged. It was within the exchange between my ashes and His beauty, that a knowing was born. I would be OK. It would all look different, but day by day I could live again. I had been and always would be someone’s little girl. He would always look after me.

There are still things I find hard, the biggest being my kids’ loss because I cannot mend that for them. I must trust hard that the hope I know becomes their own. He knows their pain and waits with longing and grace. He does not become weary and He breathes hope over and over and over again.

God, I pray for those who are still stuck in their pain. I pray they will know You are beside them, that hope is still possible and that You are still closer than a brother. I pray for all our children, call them, draw them and help them to know the fullness of Your Hope. Amen.