There are days when I wake with a terrible sinking feeling in my stomach. I open my eyes and go to breathe, but it feels as though all the air has left my lungs, and quite suddenly I'm drowning in an ocean of despair so wide and so thick that I am overwhelmed. In moments like these I don't try to fight it. I know too well how futile it is to resist the smothering fog. This blanket of misery is often knit from anxieties of a future that has not yet come to pass, or from a past that has all but settled. I find myself at the mercy of these terrible times, and I swear to you, sometimes I feel like I am going to die.
As a rock climber, I have had my fair share of "close calls" and moments of panic when fingers and feet begin to slip from their slivers of rock, and the ground rises up to meet me like an old friend. It is amazing how good the smallest piece of rock can feel when you're scaling a 1,000 ft. mountain face. A two inch crimp can become just as good as a platform, and the slightest indentation in the rock can become a heavenly foothold. There is nothing in the world that beats the feeling of grasping a solid piece of rock and knowing you have made it that much further on your journey to the top. I think of these moments as "hope" moments- when you feel as though there is no possible way you will be able to take another step, let alone finish the climb- and somehow, you do. God is my every hope moment. On the days when I feel like life is too long and too burdensome, He appears to remind me that I am here for a purpose. When I look out across the snow-capped Cascades and begin to question why my life has driven me here, He shows me why. When I am left reeling at the loss of a friend, and tears are blinding my judgment, He becomes my eyes. It is truly amazing how the smallest word from Him, the tiniest sign, can change my day, my world, completely.
I constantly question God, His intentions, His plans... too often I am in a state of distrust. Still He offers to me the one thing that I need most, hope. Hope that tomorrow will dawn, hope that my life has a purpose, hope that my heart will not burst from the burdens within it, hope that I will never be alone. His constant bestowing of hope tells me one thing, His love for me knows no bounds.
"So God, you're hope huh?"
"Hope to those who will accept it."
"How do I remember to hope? It can be so hard sometimes."
"Every relationship takes trust. Just trust in me."
"For people like me, who have been hurt so often, it's hard to trust."
"A relationship without trust is also void of love. If you love someone or something, you will trust them. You need to love first."
"But, a person can love you and still betray your trust."
"Yes, such is the way of mankind. Please, do not judge me by man's standards. My love is unconditional."
A God who supplies us with endless hope and love, unconditional love at that... how is it that we still find excuse to deny Him? Someone like myself, who has grown up in the church, who went to Christian school from Kindergarten until my last year of college, who studied the bible inside and out- why is it so hard for me to trust? God has always answered my prayers, in one form or another and He has always provided for me. This summer, when my heart was broken, He restored it. When I was agonizing over how I was to return to Africa, He opened a door. He has always supplied me with hope, and now here I am, yet again, faced with trials that wear at my soul. How will I withstand them? Will I weep and wail, and stare hollow eyed into the foreboding fog? Or will I stand tall with the knowledge that God is hope. He has always delivered me from the trials of this life, and He will surely do it again. Some days the choice is more difficult, but I know that my God saves, and His unconstrained, unreserved love shall see me through.
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