My eyes settled on the page, lingering only on those few words. “My hope is in you” That’s it. That’s all I have right now.
Hope in Jesus. The Healer, Protector, Redeemer and Friend. Hope in Him through this unknown and scary and hopeless moment.
Hope in Him. Hope in heaven. Hope in more than health or healing or earthly restoration. Because we are made for more and that’s where Hope comes in.
I held onto those words, that hope, the fact that the Lord blinded everything else to me and all I could see were those few words. He was reminding me.
As we drove that dark night, through the snow storm, through the unknown, through the pain, I prayed.
I surrendered. I begged. I pleaded. But I didn’t lose hope.
For five and a half weeks, I didn’t lose hope. I knew God could heal Him.
But God didn’t. He didn’t heal our son and Thao went to be with Jesus after fighting for weeks in a hospital bed.
And I didn’t ask why. I didn’t lose hope or faith our doubt. Because I do believe that God gives us more than we can handle (why else would we need him?) and I know this broken world is fleeting and why not me? Why not Thao? Why not our family?
And I think I can speak for both Jeff and I when I say, we were at the end of ourselves. Nothing left to give and nothing left to hold on to. Open hands. Surrender. Jesus was all we had.
And Jesus was all we wanted.
The thing is, when children die or marriages crumble or people abandon us or cancer or job losses or depression or anxiety or things just don’t work out the way we expect or want, life still goes on.
And we still have to wake up each day and take care of the kids, go to work, clean the house.
And God never stops being on His throne. He also never stops being with us.
And in the midst of tragedy, sitting next to the hospital bed and crying out to God or quietly singing His praises, He’s there. And I can feel Him. When there’s nothing left that I can fix or control, when everything is stripped away, sometimes it’s easier to surrender. Sometimes its just not as hard to lay the big things down at the cross and trust Him.
These past two years have been extremely heavy. hard. confusing.
And I will be honest, I’ve been overwhelmed and weary. I feel lost and confused. I picture the Shepherd going after the one lost lamb and I’m one of the 99 just waiting for Him to come back. Waiting for answers, directions, instructions. Waiting for things to make sense. Wondering and wandering. I feel more than ever this sense of displacement. Like I don’t belong. I don’t know my place or my worth or my value. And everyone I know is struggling. And the world is a mess. Everything is broken.
But for some reason I’m still trying to figure it all out. I’m still trying to fix things, understand things, know things. I’m leaning completely on my own because these things seem too small to bother the Lord with. There are dying children and starving orphans and trafficked women. There are wars and widows. Fires and floods.
I cannot whisper my doubts or fears or wonderings to him right now. I shouldn’t have to or need to. I tell myself to grow up. Suck it up. Deal with it.
But I live in this in between. In between heaven and earth. Longing and hope. Love and fear. I live here. And it is messed up. And I have been struggling. And it’s heavy. It’s too much. It’s overwhelming.
But I tell myself, it’s not the death of a child. I tell myself i shouldn’t feel this way. I am not battling cancer or a broken marriage. I am surrounded by my beautiful children. I know that Thao is safe with Jesus. My husband adores me and supports me. We are not starving or tucking our kids into bed in bomb shelters.
What is my problem? I ask God why. I never do this. But this time I do. I go on walks in the woods. I cry out to Him.
And He answers me. He knows me. I remember. I remember who He is. He is who He says He is. He has not forgotten me and He’s not bothered by me. And He wants it all. The big and little. He wants my cries and tears, my hopes and dreams.
I’ve learned this before about my good God. He is a good good Father. And He never leaves me. It’s me every time. I’m the one to fail and forget, to doubt and worry and fear.
He is the Healer, but sometimes that doesn’t look like what we want. He is the Almighty, but sometimes that looks like washing feet. He is the Sustainer, but sometimes that looks like sitting with us in the hunger. He is peace, but sometimes that means He’s steadfast in the storm. He will lift us up, but sometimes we don’t understand His timing.
He hears our cries and cries with us. He feels our joy and rejoices. He knows us, loves us and wraps His arms around us. Sometimes we just need reminded, we still live in a broken world. Our hope is in Him.
Our hope is in You, Lord. Help us to keep our eyes fixed on You. Our hearts wrapped in Your grace. We are shaky, You are steady. We are unworthy, You make us new. We are broken, You bind our hearts to Yours. We are never enough, You are. You are our Portion. You are our Love, You are our Father, You are our Deliverer. You are our Savior.
And that’s enough. Everything else can be stripped away, open hands, take it all, Lord, the cry of our hearts is for you alone.
The agony of this world does not compare to what we have ahead of us. The rejection we feel, the sadness we fight, the loss, the pain, the suffering…if we can just flip it all around for a second. Instead of sitting in the suffering, begging God for answers, asking why and wondering, spinning our wheels in discontentment, let’s go to God with it. How can we know joy without the sadness? How can we know wholeness without pain? How can we let these broken things of this world, point us back to Christ, forward to heaven, into hope? Beloved children of God, we have Jesus. Refocus, fix your eyes, place your faith and hope in Him. I find myself discontent in this world, longing. But that’s because we are made for more than this, we are made for holy, perfection, restoration with our Savior. We are made for His glory. And someday, we will know this full well, without our doubts and fears to scuff it up. Without the longing and sin and brokenness, someday, Believers, we will see Jesus face to face, bow down at His feet, lift our hands and praise His name.
Our hearts are filled with holes because this world is a mess. We need to fill them with Holy, with Jesus.
And that longing we feel? It’s supposed to be there. Because we need Him. we will be beaten and broken and weary, (sometimes by big life things and sometimes by small ones) but we can have unspeakable joy and love and peace. And Jesus. And He is all we need.