A vision of hope

"Where there is no vision, the people perish."

- King Solomon

One month ago, vision came to me through an assigned project. I was asked to construct a Hope journal by collecting random pictures from magazines that reminded me of hope. I had about 30 days to complete the assignment before I was expected to share my findings. On the 29th day I reluctantly began the project. If the truth be known, the only reason I pushed myself to do the project was because I did not want to let my mentor down. My weakness, pleasing and preforming, led me straight into the arms of Jesus. 

"But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong."
 -2 Corinthians 12:9-11

I gathered together a pile of magazines and began looking for hope. After about ten minutes, I realized that Southern living and Real simple magazine's were not the best place to find hopeful pictures. They wet my appetite for dinner and home decor, but didn't satisfy my hunger for hope. So, I moved on to the internet where I found a series of national geographical'ish pictures that seemed to do the job. I download about 35 pictures to a memory disc and rushed up to Walmart to have them developed. While I was there I grabbed a composition note book and glue stick to complete my project. I rushed back home and began pasting pictures in my "hope"notebook.

I was told not to think too much about what pictures I chose or in what order they should go in the journal. I was at ease with this, but I could not decided which picture should go first. My heart kept leaning to a picture, that in my opinion, did not best represent HOPE. After struggling with my decision, I decided to follow the instructions by obediently submitting to trust the process.  This was the picture my heart wanted me to put first..

After securing it in,  I sat and stared at if for a while. At first I saw a women desperately holding on to life. I saw tragedy and fear. Then my heart began to see a glimmer of hope. Look at all the firefighters and ambulances at the sight of this accident. Look at them protecting her, rescuing her, her only HOPE. I then wrote several scriptures and quotes around the picture that spoke about How God will fight for us when we are in trouble. 

The first three scriptures were.. 

"Surely the Lord was fighting for Israel"  - Joshua 10:14 

 "The Lord will fight for you; you need only to be still" Exodus 14:14 

"The Lord your God, who is going before you will fight for you as he did for you in Egypt before your very eyes" 

Deuteronomy 1:30.

I spent most of the time I had to complete this project on this 1st picture.. so for the other 34 pictures I just wrote down a few quotes, no scripture. It was time to rush to my meeting with my mentor.. when I arrived she met me at the door with a very puzzled look. She said, "Julie our meeting isn't until tomorrow, and I cant fit you in today." I laughed and said I will see you tomorrow, no big deal. Later that evening I decided to take Bella on a walk. I was a bit anxious about some circumstances in my life so I thought a good brisk walk and conversation with God would help. As I was headed up the last hill, almost home, I saw a car coming my way. It happened to be my car and my youngest daughter was driving it. I remember thinking to myself, I hope she is going to ask me if she can take the car and go to the store. Somehow I knew this would not be the case.. I knew in my heart that she was about to deliver bad news. Your spirit always knows before your mind does.. She looked at me and said ..."It's Maddie, she's been in an accident".

I had been waiting for this moment for the past two and half years. Not that I wanted this moment, I just knew it would be something tragic that would lead us back to relationship. We had no contact what so ever during this time period. It was very hard for me to accept but I knew she needed space and time to sort thorough her pain. I have come to learn that to honor her distance was the most loving thing I could do as a parent. 

With in moments I find myself being rushed to the hospital so we can see her before she goes into surgery. My mind is racing with thoughts. Why are they waiting on us? Will she live? Will she even want to see me?

When we arrive, I am scared to death.. she looks horrible. I grab her hand... this feels awkward... We tell her that we are here and we love her. The doctors meet with us and tell us she is very lucky, no broken bones, just a lot of cuts. After 4 hours of surgery everyone goes home to get some sleep and I find myself alone in a hospital room holding her hand as she sleeps. I am reeling from the drama that is unfolding.. I am fighting the temptation to react.. to agree with the lie that I always find myself suffering... I want to act differently this time..

Frederick Buechner says we are in constant danger of being reactors in the drama of our lives rather than actors..

"In our lives in the world, the temptation is always to go where the world takes us, to drift with whatever current happens to be running strongest. When good things happen, we rise to heaven; when bad things happen, we descend to hell. When the world strikes out at us, we strike back, and in one way or another the world blesses us, our spirits soar."- Frederick Buechner

I pray silently through the night and and find peace. The next morning my husband brings me a change of clothes and my book bag that was packed with my bible and my hope journal. I did not ask him to bring me my journal .. but I believe God wanted me to have it... I reached down grabbed it and opened it to the first page. My heavy heart was encouraged as I stared in amazement at what I had constructed the day before. Coincidence or Providence?  A hurried project just transformed before my very eyes  into a love letter of hope from my Savior, Jesus!

He whispered to me...

                                    "Surely the Lord was fighting for Israel"  - Joshua 10:14 

 "The Lord will fight for you; you need only to be still" Exodus 14:14 

"The Lord your God, who is going before you will fight for you as he did for you in Egypt before your very eyes" 

Deuteronomy 1:30.

He had been preparing me for this reunion.. and was helping me act from love instead of react from fear! I am walking by faith through this and handing it all over to God. I know He is nudging me with hope towards His hope-filled ending. 

"And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose."

Romans 8:28

Brave

Great Spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds.
- Albert Einstein

 

Have you ever thought that a particular season of suffering in your life would never pass. It seems like I have been through many  trails over the past 7 years and I began to think this would be my life. As if there was  a poster with my face on it and the caption read, "Poster child for enduring".  It really felt as if God was picking on me... but I have come to understand the God was picking out of me ways of thinking that held me back. I came to realize this over the past year.

 It began with examining my thoughts. 


"We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ."

2 Corinthians 10:5 NLT

clue's of what I realized that my thoughts did not line up with Gods truth. My reactions to current circumstances became the evidence and the needed change. 

Our nature always bears witness to what we believe in our hearts. 

At first, my nature was to hunker down and lower my expectations, so I could be satisfied by merely surviving. Then I would find myself fighting in my own strength to manipulate the circumstance so it would end the way I needed it to. Both ways of thinking were motivated by fear...hmmm..not of God! 

"There is no fear in love." - The Apostle Paul

First clue, my motivation of fear needed to be changed to a motivation of love! It seemed foolish at the time to hope again for a good ending, but I believe that is what God was calling me to do. My new nature was calling me to hopeful remembrance and new vision. 

"The world can be kind, and it can be cruel. It can be beautiful, and it can be appalling. It can give us good reason to hope and good reason to give up all hope. It can strengthen our faith in a loving God, and it can decimate our faith."

- Frederick Buechner

As I looked back in remembrance of the past 7 years, a lot has happened. I could look at two ways, the old way (motivated by fear) or in a new way (motivated by love) A lot of destruction, or could it be clearing away things that hindered me? It is easy to look through the eyes of fear at all of the evidence before you to assume all is lost. It's also not very hard to find others who will agree with you. Settling for less is so easy after you present your case to all who will listen. Their response is always agreement with sympathy, "Oh my, you have been through so much, you deserve a break. I would never get out of bed if I were in your shoes." This response invites me to a world of apathy that cause's me to live as a victim. In this world we are focused on our circumstances and the pain they cause. This is the wrong focus because it never allows us to look above them to trust the one who is in control of it all. Think about it, there is more than enough suffering in the world..it's overwhelming! It will keep us in a merry-go-round cycle all of our life ..If we let it. It comes down to choice. 

You choose!

A victim never thinks they have choice. They believe that bad things just happen and they have to deal with it. It's really the path of least resistance. 

Choosing to hope requires courage, vision and patience.

I'll share a time where remeberance and new vision helped me look up to trust in love instead of looking down to fear. We had just moved into our new home last year. The move was an unwelcomed circumstance in our life, but Gods finger prints were all over it. The house we lived in ten years prior to the move  was located on Battlefield Road, our new home is now located on Stillwaters Drive. ..hmmm,  makes you think. I believe that God was making a clear statement to our family that our season of battling was over. It is now a new season of stillwaters, rest. It has not been an easy transition of thinking. Often, I find my thoughts drifting back to the old way of thinking. It happens when we have new struggles. I want to agree that we will always struggle, but I know God wants me to agree that He is bigger than my struggle.

When we moved into the new house, we  decided to get a new puppy. We needed something that prompted us to love. We adopted a sweet dog and her name was jewels. She brought much joy to our house. It is amazing how a dog can remind us of what  "unconditional love" looks like. A small but welcomed change in our house. Jewels was part bulldog, and part beagle. Her nature was to hunt. If she caught a scent she was easily lured away from the safety of our yard. Yep, again she was lured away and hit by a car. She took her last breath as we brought her back to the house. I know dogs get hit by cars everyday.. no big deal. This was a big deal for me. All we were looking for was a little happiness.. and this had to happen? Really, God? Here we go.. I guess I am the poster child for suffering. As my thoughts gravitated to this way of thinking, I remembered thinking.. no, we live at stillwaters now! This is a time of rest and regeneration! I will not agree the enemy.. My thought was never again will I go through this.. no more grief .. no more dogs! Then I felt hope calling out from my heart, no, I do want another dog. She brought so much love and joy to our home. This desire was motivated by love, not fear...It took courage to stay with that hope, but I'm glad I did. Today we have a new puppy, Bella, and she has brought hope, faith and love back into our home and hearts. I'm learning to lean on hope these days and that is making all the difference. 

This snapshot reveals a glimpse of what hope looks like. It takes courage to enter into this reality.  It requires us to envision something that is not there yet. If you have something already, you don't need to hope for it (Romans 8:24). And can you see how hoping causes us to love in ways that would not be possible without a new vision of what might be? The anticipation of hope is always life giving.

"Love bears all things, hopes all things, believes all things, endures all things"

-1 Corinthians 13:7

Terrible beauty

"Yearning for God is not safe if you want to stay as you are. If you yearn for God, a sacred presence will begin to fill you. It will hover over you, nudging you to a new and eternal life. It will mean, of course, a radical change from your old lifestyle, for God will come and upset your entire life with a haunting presence, a presence that is both terrible and beautiful. It will be terrible beauty." - Macrina Wiederkehr

I want to be honest about the journey of faith, hope and love. Mostly because I want others to see that it's a lifelong journey. You don't learn to walk by faith without understanding that it's a learning process. It takes practice and yes, you will mess up and make many mistakes along the way. You will realize in the beginning just how scared you are to fail. For me, if I knew I couldn't do it right the first time I wouldn't do it at all. Really all this did was keep me from trying new things. I say all this to explain how hard it was for me to accept the process of learning how to walk by faith and not by sight.

"So we're not giving up. How could we! Even though on the outside it often looks like things are falling apart on us, on the inside, where God is making new life, not a day goes by without his unfolding grace. These hard times are small potatoes compared to the up coming good times, the lavish celebration prepared for us. There's far more here than meets the eye. The things we see now are here today, gone tomorrow. But the things we can't see now will last forever."- 2 Corinthians 4:16-18

Let me share with you one of the first ways God showed me how to fix my eyes on the unseen to allow Him to begin making new life in me with His unfolding grace.  Scribbled on the 5th page of my 1st journal written at the beginning of my journey.

PRAY  >  HOPE  > GRACE  >  FAITH  = RIGHTEOUSNESS

I believe God gave me this example or formula to think of as I was allowing God to work in me. Now, let me be very clear, I am not trying to fit God into a formula. This was just a tool God gave me to help me understand the process and helped me be patient during the process. 

This is how I read the formula : 

Julie, pray for hope (hope for any concerns, fears etc. in my life).This opens the door to my heart to allow grace (Jesus) in who will do the work of faith on the inside of me. To produce righteousness from me. 

This is how I see it working.. kind like a washing machine. I will have a difficult circumstance in my life. I will pray to God for hope concerning this circumstance. God gives me hope to hold onto while grace works out the bad in me until it becomes good.. or righteousness...more Christ like than world like. For example, I might have angry or bitter feelings towards someone. My clue that God needs to work on me is the feeling of bitterness.. I pray about the  situation, allow Him to work. If I begin to worry again about it during the day, I remind myself that I have given this over to Jesus and He is working it out. I know He has changed me when bitterness has changed to the need to forgive. This process can take a while...but it helps me to focus on watching the change in me instead of the change in my circumstance. 

The first time I remember seeing this formula help me was about 6 years ago. I was dealing with someone I love very much. I was trying to help them through a tough time where they had made bad decisions that had cause a lot of unnecessary pain in their life. My intent was to help by offering kind words of encouragement and an action plan for help. All I received for hours were objections, cut downs... It was just one big fight. After a couple of hours my heart was so tired, I just wanted to give up. I was just about to walk out and I remembered my formula, I also heard God say, "Hold on, I'm not done yet". Right after that I received a text message from a good friend. This person had no idea that I was in a "battle" . The message was- "Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see."-Hebrews 11:1 As I read this I knew that God was going to do something.. just not sure what. I dropped my head to pray silently to myself as more uncomfortable moments of silence passed  and then I heard "Why do you still love me when I act so bad?" My heart nearly jumped out of my chest.. I ran over and gave the biggest hug and said I will always love you no matter what you do. My job is to love and help you!

My heart changed from bitter to compassion all in that one moment. I will never forget how terribly beautiful it was! The process is kind of like the video clip above. Keep going and never give up because you may just find that you can do this walk of faith and end up in the in zone one day!

   

Hope

"Start with the end in mind"
-Stephen Covey

I heard Jesus speak to my heart yesterday. He said, "It's time to tell your story." I wrestled with this all day. My biggest concern was that my story doesn't  have a hopeful ending just yet. Then He reminded me of what He has been teaching me for the past seven years..

How to walk by faith and not by sight.

 It has been especially hard for the past 3 years. Our family has experienced new losses that produced suffering that felt almost as bad as letting go of Jacks presence while here on earth.

At the beginning of this year, I found myself pondering over how everything had settled. It seemed as if God had let me go through a season of letting go of everything I held  dear to my heart. It's storm like destruction blew through my relationships, my reputation,  and my financial security until all that was left was a blank canvas. It seemed a bit hopeless. I felt stripped of all that was familiar to me and was beginning to think this was my destiny. I remember one morning feeling very defeated as I was asking God about my future. I could not see one in sight for myself. He reminded me of another time when I had felt this way, it was after Jack's death. He then asked me a question. Julie, do you remember the weapon I gave you to fight against the despair of grief? My thoughts went back to my first journal written in an ordinary red spiral notebook. The first sentence of my journal was,

 "There will always be war until the heart changes".

 I prayed for my heart to change so the war with in me would stop. I questioned why God  would allow such tragedy to fall upon my family. His reply to me was, pray for hope. He showed how praying for hope opened the door to my heart and invited Grace in ...He was changing my heart to feel more like He did than I did.

He began teaching me that hope is what we hold on to while grace does the work of faith in us, changes us to be more like Christ, this we cannot do for ourselves.. Only Christ can do it, but we have to invite Him in to do the work. 

I believe that God was showing me how this new season of loss was leading me to despair. By  definition, despair is the opposite of hope. Hope is the feeling that what is wanted can be had or that events will turn out for the best. I know from my past experience with God that He works all things for the good of those who love Him. I know that He has plans to prosper me and not harm me, plans to give me hope and a future. I know He is love. I know He loves me. I know He is a God of great promises and He cannot, will not lie to me. So with that being said, I believe He is asking me to hope again. I am a little fearful to hope because what if my hopes don't turn out the way I hoped? C.S. Lewis said it best, "We are not necessarily doubting that God will do the best for us, we are wondering how painful the best will turn out to be." As I prayed that morning, I confessed my fears to hope, left them at the feet of Jesus and promised Him I would pray again for hope that would  open the door of my heart again to His grace. I also agreed to begin to tell my story with this end in sight... that no matter what it looks like I know God's glory will shine bright for all to see His good and mighty work in and through my life. 
Today I will be obedient to tell my story of hope. Not yet by sight, but by faith I will stay focused on the horizon of hope to discover my new land!