I learned the true importance of hope when I found myself in situations where I was hurting. I found the necessary need for hope, when I felt myself breaking, beyond repair. It was during those times that I called out to God, and allowed Him to embrace me with His presence. I called on Him because I needed Him. And ALL of my hope was in Him. I used to hear people say that "if you don't have hope in times of trouble, then you don't have anything". Well, I found that to be true. I say this because when you are truly hurting, there really is nothing to keep you from falling completely apart; unless you have hope. I will give a very specific example. My family and I lost the very glue that held us together as a family in June 2011. We all lost our sister, mother, and daughter, Candese. She and I were so close while she was here on Earth. And when I finally realized that she was gone, I couldn't breathe, literally! The very thought of her being gone from Earth forever, was simply too hard for me to bear, on my own. As a matter of fact, it was so hard to bear that I had to take the very thought within me day by day, little by little. I could not just take a whole day to take it all in! It simply hurt too much! I was consumed with so many thoughts of how she was so many things to so many people. I couldn't help but be absolutely consumed with the hurt that I was forced to endure! To add to it, I was so broken by the loss of such an important piece of me-of my family, that I allowed that brokenness to blind me from the entire purpose for my pain.
What made this entire situation worst is that her death occurred a mere 6 months after I entered single motherhood with my daughter Chastity. It felt like just as I was starting to come out of the wilderness journey that I found myself in (with unplanned single motherhood), I was entering the wilderness again! And everything in me was giving up, giving way slowly, to the issues of life. I was so close to losing my mind at this time, that the only thing I had to rely on was hope! And as I was weakened with unbearable suffering at this point, I pulled out the last little glimmer of hope that I possessed, before completely caving in. And it turns out, that was all I needed to do! I needed to have hope in the God that I served! I needed to remember that His word said to call on Him in times of trouble! His word says to lean and depend on Him when we are hurting. His word declares that He is our hope! And in that same declaration, we must declare that He is our hope! We must reach for Him over and over again, until He comes to us! No matter how much suffering we may have to endure, all of our hope should always be in Him. As we are hurting, we must still hope in Him.
Because it is through that very hope that our hurt will turn into healing! If there was never any hurt, then there would never be any hope. And if there was never any hope, then there would never be any healing! I have learned that some sufferings we face simply because the lessons behind them are too important in our relationship with Christ for us to miss. " But the God of all grace, who hath called us unto His eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after that ye have suffered a while, perfect, establish, strengthen, and settle you". (1 Peter 5:10)
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