hope

Finding Hope Along the Way

/ Laurie / 2 Comments

As we prepare for the Lenten season, my heart and mind have been more grounded than ever before. I am filled with a silent peace… a hope—you will hear me use this word a great deal this year, as I have shared, it is where I find myself being led for a number of reasons.

Hope is not wishful thinking but a confident, assured expectation of God’s promises.

Romans 15:13 “May the God of hope fill you with all the joy and peace as you trust Him, so that you may overflow with hope…”

Hebrews 11:1 “Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and the assurance of what we do not see.”

Romans 5:3-5 “…we also glory in our sufferings… suffering produces perseverance, perseverance-character, character-hope. Hope does not shame…”

and of course… my Life Verse

Jeremiah 29:11 “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”

So how do we cultivate hope?

Meditate on scripture; spending time in the Word allows us to grow closer to the Lord, deepens our faith, and strengthens hope.

Prayer: have a conversation with God. Honestly express your feelings to Him; trust in Him. Nothing you say is a surprise. He wants us to come to Him, whether it is crying out in anger or whispering our despair.

Wait on the Lord. Easier said than done… God’s timing? But I want/need this now. I used to hate the saying where we are told that God has three answers: yes, no, and not yet. Over the years, I have learned to understand and even relish in the waiting. But it took time.

Earlier in the week, I had a Facebook memory come up; it was a poem that I wrote 15 years ago. Transitional and ominous, as I expressed how I was finally able to let go of all the images that clung to me and the heartbreak I carried for so many years. Then this evening, at our Ash Wednesday service, we were reminded how sometimes things happen in our lives that cause us to awaken to a new perspective. How there are moments in our lives where we contemplate what road we may be walking down. Are we being guided to stray from the “safe” path, what is familiar, and what we believe we could never separate ourselves from? Or, are we willing and brave enough to respond to this contemplation and return to the Lord?

Autumn Bride

In the darkness that has covered the years,

A black cloud continues to blot out all the vibrant colors of fall.

Until now, that is, on this day.

On this day, finally, I am able to let go. (Render me, Lord.)

Allow myself to break away, to rend myself, from the hold of your memory and a broken promise.

A broken promise that not only left this dark and ominous void;

but also, built a wall.

A wall that is short, weak, and falls all too easily.

It falls when surrounded by familiar lies.

Those empty words, which are only pretending to mend the point.

Today, I realize that there is no need for a wall, no need for such protection.

I need to merely allow His arms to surround me.

To love me, to care and provide.

Only He knows my true pain, my sorrow.

Only He knows my deepest wants and desires.

To them, He says, “No.”

“Wait.”

“Trust.”

“Have faith.”

“Allow Me, to be your love.”

“Your partner, the husband of your heart.”

“I will never leave you; I will never let you fall.”

“I will protect you.”

“One day, you will know a love like that again.”

“One day, you will find comfort in human arms.”

“But for today, find comfort in Me.”

“Allow me to comfort you, love you.”

“Be My Bride.”

**I wrote this in the fall of 2011; the words in italics are new as I post this here.

Joel 2:12-13 …return to Me with all your heart… Rend your heart and not your garments. Return to the Lord your God, for He is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love…

Have you stopped on your path in life? Afraid to move forward, only wanting to turn back?

We are reminded in His word 365 times (that’s one for each day of the year, if you’re counting):

“Do not be afraid.” So I encourage you—no, I want to inspire you to keep moving forward.

Don’t let fear overwhelm you as you try to navigate this life; listen for His wee small voice and boldly move towards Him and all He has planned for you.

It only takes one step at a time, so walk along this quiet path with me. Walk with our Lord, and see what this path unfolds as we journey into this season of rendering and hope.

Hope in the Silence

/ Laurie / 1 Comment

Hope is defined as a feeling of expectation and desire for a certain thing to happen. As well as the Cambridge dictionary’s translation, something good that you want to happen in the future or a confident feeling about what will happen in the future.

Aspiration, desire, wish, dream… Additional words that take our thoughts to look for more and anticipate a certain outcome. There is also faith, belief, and conviction, all converging our thoughts to something more.

In the past, I have done a one-word study through the Bible. The first year I did this, my word was “joy,” the second year was “hope,” and the year following was “peace,” but I fell away from that routine; life was lifing and I did not stay true to my practice. Now, 2-3 years out of the practice, I find myself involved again, and due to a series of wonderful events, I have circled back to hope.

In the late fall of 2025, hope started showing its lovely self in the simplest and smallest of ways, but one way was not so simple nor small. As I write this, I am still almost afraid to say it out loud, worried I might jinx myself and this wonderful dream, this lifelong aspiration, won’t come true.

But it certainly is on the cusp of being an actual part of my reality. As I have often shared here and on previous blogs, my lifelong goal is to be a published author. Now I had a couple poems published many moons ago, but in little journals that not many people know of. Heck, in full transparency, I can’t even recall the names.

However, roughly 24 hours ago, I hit the “submit” button and sent in the final edits of my chapter, which I am submitting as my portion of a collaboration book with nine other women. The book’s title? HOPE (vol. II). My chapter: Finding Hope in the Darkness: Learning that God is there even when we think He’s not. It will be filled with 10 separate accounts of beating the odds, facing the giant, and stepping out of the darkness. Strong stories of hurt and pain, but also of faith and hope, to remind those reading that there is something after the tragedy they have experienced, that there is hope, if you only look close enough.

So with a story five decades in the making, I started to reveal my tale. A story that I’ll admit might hurt to read—hell, it hurt to write at moments, drawing up the raw emotion from all those years ago. But I know that it needs to be done. I need to write about it more than in my own private journals. I need to share the raw truth from the beginning. And what helped me through it all was hope.

Hope that the dark and terrible road I was on would eventually come to an end. Understanding that not everyone lived in the cute little house with the white-picket fence, like I imagined. That there were others who, just like me, were simply trying to get through a given day without experiencing the touch of an abusive hand. That in sharing my story and how I made it through all the darkness, I am actually sharing how I found hope and that it must be shared.

I won’t say much more, because I don’t want to give the story away, but it is the perfect beginning for me to take the next step, and that is to write my full story, a memoir of where I came from and how I got to where I am today. My story, from all the dark and ugly parts to the beautiful life I live today. My life as it is today is truly beyond anything I could have imagined. I might not have gotten here, to this wonderful Nana Life I live, without hope, faith, and a whole lot of prayer.

What started as cries for help were so much more… they were actually cries for hope. Hope for something different, something more; hope for the light to shine just a little brighter and guide the way to a better place, a place without pain, a place where most of the tears that fall would be tears of joy.

Hope is a feeling, an emotion that we can use to sustain us, if we only allow it to do so. If we can grab hold of the candle before us, with its barely flickering flame, we can move toward the illumination of hope. The light may be just out of reach, but it’s there, lighting the way out of the darkness. Hope doesn’t show itself without change, either to our surroundings, and most often the change must come from us, whether willingly or not.

It is through the change that comes when we move forward towards the flickering candle, and as the Toby Mac song “Lights Shine Bright” says, “Lights shine bright everywhere we go / Music for the people to illuminate the soul.” This and so many of his songs allow us, through their lyrics, to find hope in faith and the promise for something more.

It is through hope and the faith that is its close companion that healing can begin. With hope and faith, we must also find forgiveness, and that is sometimes quite difficult to achieve. When we have been hurt or abused, we often find ourselves in a pit of darkness. So encompassed by our pain and anger that it seems impossible to fathom forgiving. I am here to say it doesn’t happen overnight, at least it didn’t for me. It took months and months of counseling and even more prayer, but the light of hope did come. I am also going to tell you how much lighter the burden of that part of my story became because I forgave my abuser.

Do you have a burden, a pain you still carry? Is it buried down deep with the hope of “out of sight, out of mind”? Or perhaps you have a new burden that is stealing your hope. Reach down deep and pull yourself up to the surface, share your pain, your secret, and see how hope can set you free. Find someone to help pull you up and comfort you, to walk with you as you go forward. Our trials and tribulations were never meant to be faced alone.

One night I dreamed I was walking
along the beach with the Lord.
Many scenes from my life flashed across the sky.

In each scene I noticed footprints in the sand.
Sometimes there were two sets of footprints,
other times there were one set of footprints.

This bothered me because I noticed that
during the low periods of my life, when I was
suffering from anguish, sorrow or defeat,
I could see only one set of footprints.

So I said to the Lord,”You promised me
Lord, that if I followed you,
you would walk with me always.
But I have noticed that during the most trying periods
of my life there have only been
one set of footprints in the sand.
Why, when I needed you most,
you have not been there for me?”

The Lord replied,
“The times when you have
seen only one set of footprints,
is when I carried you.”

~ Mary Stevenson

I have left you with this, Footprints in the Sand, one of my favorite poems, so that you can ponder the beautiful thought of never being left alone in this life. The sweet understanding that He is always with us, even in our darkest times; and when we are feeling lost and weary, He will carry us safely until we can walk beside Him once again. Walk with Him in the silence, as it is often the most beautiful sound.

UnRaveled

/ Laurie / Leave a comment

I’m feeling bit muddled these days, completely lost in my thoughts, certainly lost in their silence. So many of these thoughts are tethered to a particular relationship, bond to memories that I hold dear. But these memories seem to me, all I have to cling to.

It is this relationship, years in the making that I want to understand more; understand better, I want it to be a more significant part of my life today. Yet, today that does not seem to be possible, because the relationship that used to come so easy, that was perhaps once something I took for granted, is now almost unattainable.

So, it is now when the questions come. These are tough questions that I must ask myself. How? When? Why?

I need to, I must; take the step back, to look back and examine myself, asking myself those tough questions. I must try and decipher through my harried and troubled past, especially focusing in on the past few years, in order to determine how did I let this happen? When did things truly start to unravel? Why didn’t I try to stop it? Where did it all go wrong? Did I see that the cord was starting to fray? Was it subtle, or was it glaring? Did I make any effort, or simply turn a blind eye?

Today I have learned, today I understand; that I need to ask myself, what was my part in the unraveling. What did I do to create the inner turmoil that I struggle with in the most quiet moments of the night? How did I contribute to the darkness that exists in the deepest parts of my heart and soul, where that unravel was created, where there is so much unrest? How is it that I couldn’t find a way to simply reach out into the slowing growing void, before it outgrew both our reaches? Thus, finding ourselves at a place, unable to allow our fingers to intertwine, unable pull the other to safety. Our lives continuing to unravel, and in the darkness of the void, remain unseen and unheard.

Today I look across the void, slight reflections of light surprise me; tiny glimmers of hope. Hope that perhaps in time, the void can be filled; the cord tightened and reinforced to bring us close once again. Creating perhaps, a suspension bridge across the void, allowing us to meet in the middle of all that vast and vacant darkness. Then, once again being brought to a common point, allowing us to fill the void together, speaking our individual truths. And with each spoken word, each healing expression, the void will indeed fill with sounds of encouragement, love and healing.

Once again, breaking the silence.