Hope and Fear

Fear...

12/12

Last week....I was sucker punched and the wind knocked out of me. True evil revealed herself and I was not prepared for the pain she unleashed upon my heart.

I still can not catch my breathe.

I can't see past the pain, the loneliness, the despair, the hopelessness, and the fear. The darkness is too thick to see an escape. I struggle to find that thin thread of hope that dangles in the darkness around me. Where is it, why can't I hold onto it?

I struggle to comprehend how some people can be so evil.

I was hanging onto a thread of hope and then as the days went by, I reached out to friends and they re-affirmed by faith. Ok...when I say re-affirmed by faith, I mean I was walking around with an empty pillow case, wandering the streets aimlessly searching for a house or two with their lights on at Halloween. They gave me bits of wisdom like little candy bars you get at Halloween. Sometimes, even full size candy bars. I have been snacking on those little bits of wisdom all week and I feel better. Hope is a funny thing!

If I ruminate on the losses in my life, the evil staring at me, and the hurdles that remain, I lose hope as fast as I lose my wallet. I swear, I just had it. I search and search for it and then when you least expect it...."oh, there it is".....usually in an easy to find spot. Only to lose it the next morning or even the same day.
I have learned this past week, that my faith isnt much of a sustaining faith. It was a Boom - Wow - moment when it happened. However, like a new computer, over time, it has gotten bogged down with too much information, a few viruses and the software is out of date.  My faith runs like a Commodore 64 at times....s...l....o....w..., .......v......e.......r.......y........s........l.......o...........w.
Even times when I thought I had updated the software, I realized a few days later that it was only X.1 and it should be running on X.9.

"Hang in there" "It will all work out" "Trust God" "I get the feeling some good will come out of this" "Its going to be ok"......these phrases played on my nerves. Every time I felt a little contentment to sit there and stew in self-pity and adjust my eyes to the darkness around me, someone would offer another "This will be over soon" or "Don't worry" cheer that seemed more like I was being spun around in the dark, blindfolded, banging up against that last thread of hope, in a cruel game of "Spin some Hope for the Hopeless".......Like I could feel the thread of hope hitting me, yet, I couldnt grab onto it because I kept spinning around it.
Oh the beauty of relationships. The more they spun me, it seemed the blindfold was falling off and I could start to see the thread shimmering in the darkness, I was able to reach out and grab onto it. The thread now seems like a very thin rope.
These relationships remind me of little rain drops that at first are annoying because you dont want to get wet, only to realize that its a refreshing rain and now I want to dance in the rain!
Relationship....we are called to have relationship, we are created for relationship. The very thing we were created for was to have a relationship with God, then when he saw that man was alone, he brought along a woman for more relationship. Just the same as God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit live in constant relationship, so we are called to be a part of that relationship as well as the relationships with others in our lives.

Today........Hope.........Dancing in the rain and being thankful for relationships!  Thankful that our heavenly Father wants to have a relationship with us, thankful for the people in my life who He has put there for relationships. Thankful, even, for those relationships that I am not able to continue with at the moment, or relationships that are over because those relationships help fuel my hope and have also taught me invaluable lessons about future relationships and have helped mold me into the person I am now.

Like a joyous child going home to count his candy....today, Im counting my relationships and the blessings they are!