Hopelessness

What is "Hope?"

Merrimam-Webster.com defines hope as the action of a person "to cherish a desire with anticipation" and "to expect with confidence."  

I hope today is filled with peace. I hope my children enjoy their birthdays. I anticipate the sun will rise. I have great confidence that my heart will continue beating.   

Yet there have been times when all hope was gone. I have known depression. I know what it means to not be able to get out of bed because the weight of your soul defies human strength. I know what it is to hide in the closet and embrace the darkness because it matches your emotional state. To walk in a daze, going through the motions of caring for others because they need you. No joy. No pleasure. 

Perhaps "Hopelessness" is merely a synonym for "Depression."   

I've been in a car and thought that others would be better off if I just kept driving - their life we would be better without my brokenness.
I've seen the pain in my husbands eyes as he loved me so deeply and yet
couldn't reach me in my darkness. 

Yes, even thoughts of suicide -- just to make the pain stop. 

In these times of darkness I had no hope that the physical pain would end; that the emotional pain would be healed; that the spiritual pain could be redeemed. I had no expectation that my future would be any better than the hopelessness I felt at that moment.

One spring day, I simply could no longer function. I called my dad to please come get my children for the afternoon. I couldn't take care of them. All I could manage was packing them up, calling my daddy and laying on the bed. 

I was desperate. 

God likes desperate. 

Desperate takes away alternates and leaves only God. 

My soul sighed, "God I cannot live like this. Please remove this from me."

A simple cry from my soul. 

In the next moment the hand of God reached down to me, taking the hopelessness and depression between His pinched fingers and pulling the web that had cocooned me. I physically felt it drawn from my head and toes, my shoulders and knees and leaving me!  

I was free. 

I lay there as tears of release rolled down my cheeks and I fell into a restful sleep. 

And awoke in Hope. 

There have been times that this hopelessness has threatened to return. I look at the suffering around me and wonder if God has a plan. Days my body hurts and I don't know how I'm going to even get dressed and wonder why God doesn't heal me. Moments I grieve over lost relationships and question if God sees the pain.  

Then I remember the day hope returned. I stop looking inward at my pain and grief. I stop looking around at man-made situations. Then I do the impossible - I allow those questions and pain and loss and grief to drive me to the Cross.

                                 

I go to "Jesus, our Hope," (1 Timothy 1:1). 

I know that, "He will be with you; he will not leave you or forsake you. Do not fear or be dismayed," (Deut. 31:8).

God promises me that, "I will be with you when you pass through waters; and when you pass through the rivers - you will not be overwhelmed. You will not be scorched when you walk through the fire, and the flames won't burn you,"(Isaiah 43:2). 

Patiently I obey God who tells me that I must "Let all that I am wait quietly before God, for my hope is in Him," (Psalm 62:5). 

Today may be tough but I know that "Surely there is a future, and your hope will not be cut off," (Proverbs 23:18). 

I am not forgotten but I am blessed because I am a woman "who trusts in the Lord, whose trust is the Lord," (Jeremiah 17:7).

And in the darkest night, my longest day "I will hope continually and will praise Him more and more" (Psalm 71:14).

I wait for Him, cherishing His promises that "in all things God works for the good of those who love him," (Romans 8:28) and that God's plans for me are "for peace and not disaster" and gives me "a future filled with hope!" (Jeremiah 29:11 NOG).  

Our Hope is not in this temporary life. It is not in our human strength, our perceived power, our prayers or in our Faith. 

Our Hope - our cherished desire that we wait for with great anticipation - is eternity with God through the salvation we have in Christ Jesus, the comfort we are given through the Holy Spirit and the restored relationship we have with the Father.

And this Hope changes everything.