In the wee early hours of this morning I woke up from a nightmare. I was clutched by an old familiar fear that I hadn't had to feel or think about for a long enough time that it knocked me a bit off balance. I was at one time in an abusive relationship, the abuse ranged the gamut of emotional, psychological, physical, spiritual abuse. And I was in a position of fearing for my life at least once and keenly aware this person would not hesitate to take my life in the right circumstance. So in the early morning, the blue of the new morning sky not quite present, I was remembering. I was trying to explain in my mind the reasons for the spiral I went down into after that relationship, I was trying to explain my guilt, my shame, my forgiveness, and the why of why I am still unable to completely forgive and let it go.
It is not an easy thing to have known a situation where you were terrified moment to moment, you bent to the will of someone's easily shifting moods or that there is often judgement for you for having someone hurt you like this (even if leaving made you afraid for your life). And in all of the tears that came up, in all of the pain I remember having been in, in all the regret for not knowing how to do more or better... I recalled that in those moments what held me together, what kept complete madness at bay, what allowed me to move one day to the other, was HOPE. I hoped ceaselessly for a better way to be made evident, I hoped for healing, I hoped for the strength to continue to persevere, and I hope most of all that God would do what I could not. I clung to hope like a life raft because it was what kept me alive.
I have this canvas sign in my house that I face as I eat every meal. It reads: HOPE reflects belief. HOPE believes in the better, in the higher, in the possibilities. HOPE rejects cynicism. People with a higher level of hope believe that though events may not work out they will not be defeated. HOPE is the dream of a soul awake.
There have been days when in all honesty the emotional pain I was suffering because I could not stand in the line of fire for someone I loved left me writhing in pain. I would feel as though every fiber of my being was being torn asunder and there was no escape from it. But HOPE, hope that there was a purpose, there was a higher reason, there was a better way possible... Hope let me make it to the next moment and then the next until there was no more writhing, until I am here today sitting across from that sign writing this and only remembering that those moments were but no longer ARE now.
None of us are given lives where we have been allowed a walk through life without pain, suffering, harm, or betrayal of some kind. None of us has been given a way to avoid the possibility of it happening again. None of us will however overcome what we have known without the hope that overcoming is possible. It is the faith you begin to place in that hope, that idea, that will drive your thoughts, your actions, your words. It is the truth that you want more than what you have come to know which will open up the way for that more. And it is belief in that longing in your heart that will guide you to a place where you do not have to just make it from one moment to the next.
I suggest here that we all face towards our own hope, however futile your circumstances now, however hard it is or how much pain you have known. Without hope you may become lost in what can only be temporary if you do not let it flow into something more. Hope my friends, HOPE as if your life depends on it, because it does!
It is not an easy thing to have known a situation where you were terrified moment to moment, you bent to the will of someone's easily shifting moods or that there is often judgement for you for having someone hurt you like this (even if leaving made you afraid for your life). And in all of the tears that came up, in all of the pain I remember having been in, in all the regret for not knowing how to do more or better... I recalled that in those moments what held me together, what kept complete madness at bay, what allowed me to move one day to the other, was HOPE. I hoped ceaselessly for a better way to be made evident, I hoped for healing, I hoped for the strength to continue to persevere, and I hope most of all that God would do what I could not. I clung to hope like a life raft because it was what kept me alive.
I have this canvas sign in my house that I face as I eat every meal. It reads: HOPE reflects belief. HOPE believes in the better, in the higher, in the possibilities. HOPE rejects cynicism. People with a higher level of hope believe that though events may not work out they will not be defeated. HOPE is the dream of a soul awake.
There have been days when in all honesty the emotional pain I was suffering because I could not stand in the line of fire for someone I loved left me writhing in pain. I would feel as though every fiber of my being was being torn asunder and there was no escape from it. But HOPE, hope that there was a purpose, there was a higher reason, there was a better way possible... Hope let me make it to the next moment and then the next until there was no more writhing, until I am here today sitting across from that sign writing this and only remembering that those moments were but no longer ARE now.
None of us are given lives where we have been allowed a walk through life without pain, suffering, harm, or betrayal of some kind. None of us has been given a way to avoid the possibility of it happening again. None of us will however overcome what we have known without the hope that overcoming is possible. It is the faith you begin to place in that hope, that idea, that will drive your thoughts, your actions, your words. It is the truth that you want more than what you have come to know which will open up the way for that more. And it is belief in that longing in your heart that will guide you to a place where you do not have to just make it from one moment to the next.
I suggest here that we all face towards our own hope, however futile your circumstances now, however hard it is or how much pain you have known. Without hope you may become lost in what can only be temporary if you do not let it flow into something more. Hope my friends, HOPE as if your life depends on it, because it does!
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