Tag Archives: hope

Lament

10 Tuesday Jun 2014

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Lament defined is a passionate expression of grief or sorrow.  Yes, even misery.  I have used this space to lament many, many times.  I like to express my sorrow, my misery, because I DO NOT want to hold onto it.  So, this space is where it is released.  It is where I make space in my mind and in my soul for hope.

The Psalms are full of lament.  I think I understand some of what David felt when he was writing his psalms of lament.  I think I understand how it helped him keep moving forward when his days were tough.  No doubt his challenges were often a bit more of a life and death matter than mine.  Nonetheless, emotion is emotion in whatever situation we find it.

One of David’s lament psalms I have identified with the most is Psalm 51.  Here’s an excerpt with highlighted portions done by me…

Have mercy on me, O God,
according to your unfailing love;
according to your great compassion
blot out my transgressions.
Wash away all my iniquity
and cleanse me from my sin.
For I know my transgressions,
and my sin is always before me.
Against you, you only, have I sinned
and done what is evil in your sight;
so you are right in your verdict
and justified when you judge.
Surely I was sinful at birth,
sinful from the time my mother conceived me.
Yet you desired faithfulness even in the womb;
you taught me wisdom in that secret place.
Cleanse me with hyssop, and I will be clean;
wash me, and I will be whiter than snow.
Let me hear joy and gladness;
let the bones you have crushed rejoice.
Hide your face from my sins
and blot out all my iniquity.

Create in me a pure heart, O God,
and renew a steadfast spirit within me.
Do not cast me from your presence
or take your Holy Spirit from me.
Restore to me the joy of your salvation
and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me.

David understood misery.  And pain.  And hope.  Those things can and do live together.  Maybe my failure as I lament is that I do not include elements of hope that are evident to everyone.  I don’t know that my writing is as good as it should be or the message as broad as it could be but I do know this; I understand what David understood.  Writing out your pain can open the door to the hope that only comes from God.

While I often say I write only for myself, I do seek your comments.  Do I lament too much?  Do I seem like a miserable person?  Do I need to include more hope?  What would you say I need to do better as a writer?

Grace and peace.

Miserable

09 Monday Jun 2014

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Miserable.  That’s how one person described the way I sound in my blog posts.

When someone says you sound miserable, it’s hard not to stop and take inventory.  Am I miserable?  Am I making other people miserable?  Should I stop writing and work on being happy?

I have always said this blog is written for me.  It’s cathartic.  It’s an outlet for some of what I am feeling inside.  It’s my space for my thoughts and words I need to express for my own good.  Yes, this space is all about me.  I find it sometimes applies to others but it is for me.  Given my current situation with a disastrous job situation, a depressing living situation and being in a place where I am alone the vast majority of the time, life is not all sunshine and roses.  Add to that fact that the Texas Rangers are literally falling apart and misery is what is left.

I have a great woman in my life.  I should say a GREAT woman.  I have to super kids.  They have both achieved academic success and they are both kids who do life better than I ever imagined and are examples to me, their father.  I have good friends back home.  A good dog.  A decent truck to drive.  A roof over my head.  Lots of people have it far worse than my little life.

All that and yes, I am just a bit miserable.  You see, the great woman is 3 hours away and I spend about as much time texting and talking on the phone as I do being with her in person.  My kids are both headed for college and this is my last summer with my son and I am working and living 3 hours away.  My house and my dog are in another town and so are my friends.  Honestly, while I know they love me, I don’t hear much from them while I’m away so that emphasizes the loneliness I feel at times.  You see, I want to be WITH them.  I don’t want a phone relationship.  Or email relationship.  Or Facebook relationship.  I want to be with them.  Eat with them.  Talk to them over coffee.

So, in a way, I am miserable.  I realize I could be in 1,000’s of worse situations but I’m in my own bad situation and it’s bad enough for me.  Maybe God realizes I can’t handle a worse situation.

And I say that to say this.  It’s bad but…

I HAVE HOPE.  I have hope that I will be with the woman I love one day SOON.  I have hope I will get more time with my kids this summer.  I have hope that I will get a job that I love and it is one where I am wanted and appreciated.  I have hope I will get to live in my house, sleep in my bed, spend time with my dog, see my friends regularly.  HOPE is what has kept me alive.  HOPE is what has allowed me to do this for more than six months now.

I think I have more hope than the average person because they don’t get to see what I see.  They don’t get to experience the pain I have experienced.

I’ve been told I am strong.  I don’t think so because I know I feel like crumpling to the ground each and every minute.  I attribute my ability to keep moving forward to a supernatural power.  That is who is holding me up.  That is who is moving me forward.  I simply have hope.  The rest comes from one much stronger than me.

HOPE is powerful.  Hoping in the Creator, hoping in YHWH, that gives me strength I do not possess.

Forgive me if I sound miserable.  I’m just letting that out of my head and I don’t mean to leave the idea that what I share here is all of my life.  I’m holding on to the HOPE inside me.  I’m keeping it alive within me.  I need it and don’t feel like I have more than I can share right now.  One day I want to share hope but today, today I have to hold onto my hope.  It sustains me.

Grace and peace.

Will It End?

04 Wednesday Jun 2014

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I really, really want to write a feel good story.  I really do.

In the last few days, I’ve experienced severe loneliness.  Almost debilitating loneliness.  Loneliness that makes one think thoughts they can’t put on their blog.  In the last few days, I’ve had a friend tell me about the struggles of his life, his marriage and his reason to keep on living.  In the last few days, I’ve had a friend tell me about the struggles of her life, about the impending death of someone very, very close to her and the fallout that may accompany it from family members.

Pain.  Intense pain.  Pain that takes the mind to the deepest, darkest recesses of thought.

Will it end?  Will pain in this lifetime relent?  Will pain give way to joy?  Or even numbness?

Will it end?  Will pain give way to hope?  Will it give way to just a moment of peace?

I see people who seem to have good lives.  They seem to have everything they want on top of everything they need.  I see people who enjoy vacations and good jobs and freedom from debt.  I see them.  I wonder what it would be like to be them for a day…a week…a year…a lifetime.  Can they imagine what I know as a reality?  Can they imagine what my friends are going through?

I have hope that one day the pain will end.  I don’t know if it will be in this life or another but I have hope that it will be sooner rather than later.

Will it end?  I hope so.  For me.  For my friends.  For those I see who hurt with intense pain that few understand or want to imagine.  I hope so.

Grace and peace.

While I’m Waiting…

30 Friday May 2014

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“You may encounter many defeats, but you must not be defeated.  In fact, it may be necessary to encounter the defeats, so you can know who you are, what you can rise from, how you can still come out of it.” — Maya Angelou

Defeats.  Plural, not singular.  I have faced my fair share and I know I am not alone.  As I struggle with my professional life and feel defeated, I can look at my personal life and see victory.  As I struggle with my financial situation and feel defeated, I look at tomorrow and I still hold out hope for better days ahead.  I appreciate what Angelou says in the quote above and look forward to a day I can look back and see what I have risen from.  I hope for that day.  I hope for favor from God.

John Waller sings a song about waiting, about hope.  I recall it every now and then because it is a reminder to me that even when I feel defeated, there is hope in the rest of today and hope in tomorrow.

I’m waiting
I’m waiting on You, Lord
And I am hopeful
I’m waiting on You, Lord
Though it is painful
But patiently, I will wait

I will move ahead, bold and confident
Takeing every step in obedience
While I’m waiting
I will serve You
While I’m waiting
I will worship
While I’m waiting
I will not faint
I’ll be running the race
Even while I wait

I’m tired.  Some of David’s psalms resonate when he asks YHWH to deliver him before his spirit is too low, before it is crushed.  Waller’s song reminds me to wait on YHWH, to take the defeats of today so I can learn from them and be reminded later down the road what I have risen from.

It isn’t easy for me to wait.  Truth be told, I’m very tired of waiting right now.  I want to experience the joy that comes from using my gifts in a place where they are needed and wanted.  I want to experience nights with my someone special where we can talk like we used to.  I want to dig out of the financial mess I’m in and live comfortably, smarter than I have in the past, more responsible.  I keep waiting for that time to come.

Wait for YHWH; be strong and take heart and wait for YHWH. – Psalms 27:14

Grace and peace.

Introversion Conundrum

28 Wednesday May 2014

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What’s an introvert to do when he is tired of being alone?

I realized today that for the past 20 years I have eaten lunch with someone almost daily.  A friend.  A coworker.  A child.

For the past 6 months, I have eaten lunch Monday through Friday alone almost every week.  Sonic.  The taco trailer.  Schlotzskys.

The same goes for supper.  For the better part of 20 years someone has been with me when I ate.  Conversation.  Stories.  Dreams.  Even silence but silence with someone present.   And, even the times I didn’t have supper with someone, I had been with people the better part of the day and didn’t mind a meal on my own.  At least the dog was there if no one else was.

For the most part I am all alone during the week.  The saving grace is a phone call or FaceTime with a very special woman.  Still, she’s the person I want to hold in my arms instead of holding a phone.

What’s an introvert to do when he is tired of being alone?

Grace and peace.

 

 

Hope?

25 Sunday May 2014

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“Yet when I hoped for good, evil came; when I looked for light, then came darkness” (Job 30:26)

I will start by admitting that I am writing from a very painful place right now.  My heart is heavy and my emotions are fueling the pain I feel in my bones.  In these times, it is easy to see the darkness.  That said, I think there is much more darkness around me and others than any of us care to admit.  Cancer.  Molestation.  Addiction.  Murder.  War.  Evil.  There is a lot of darkness in our daily lives.  I also realize there is much more good and light than I see at times.  People are doing things everyday to help others that no one ever knows.  Prayers are raised up.  Acts of kindness and compassion.  Charity and goodwill shared.

Hope is one of those double-edged emotions.  On the one hand, hope inspires and offers a glimpse of what might be.  On the other hand, hope causes me to look at the reality of a situation and see that this present moment is not good even though I choose to believe I will prevail in the end.  Some people are eternal optimists who always believe things will work out and some, like me, walk a fine line with hope that allows for the pain of the situation that is creating the hope.  There is also the potential for a lack of hope.  It leads to a brokenness that is full of pain and may lead to a brokenhearted end.

The challenge of hope is the shaky ground it is often built on.  In my situation, it doesn’t take much for me to want to abandon hope momentarily.  My situation is very hard on me and there are certain markers I have each week that allow me to hold onto that hope.  If the ground shakes and the markers move, my first reaction is to throw up my hands, abandon hope, lay down in a ball and wait to die.  I don’t handle these moments well.  I will admit that.  I do not believe I am a fatalist but I can adopt that attitude at times because my marker changed, moved or disappeared.  Basically, the rope I was pulling on to get me to the shore and dry ground got yanked out of my hand and now I have to paddle while the current is trying to push me back into the sea.  I was so close and then, poof, I have to start over.

That is the dark side of me and my hope.  While I fight that battle, I find myself continuing to hope.  At this point in my journey I cannot explain why I continue to put faith in God.  It would be easy to justify the course of my life as random events and nothing to do with a supreme being that I cannot see or hear or touch.  For some reason, I choose to believe.  Maybe it’s because of a great question a close friend asked me one time.  “What else?  If you won’t believe in God, what will you believe in?”  Belief still gives me someone to call out to.  Belief still gives me someone to hope in.  Belief allows me to think I will prevail at some point.  Belief allows me to stand up after I have been on my knees weeping from the current emotion.  Belief fuels hope for what is much further away than I want but I will hope it’s still out there.

The Stockdale Paradox suggests that I never lose hope but I accept that my present reality is not good, not kind and not forgiving.  Admiral James Stockdale was a prisoner of war who endured torture unlike anything I want to imagine and lived through it.  He is quoted as saying it was the optimists who died in that POW camp because their hearts broke when their optimism was crushed after a year or years of captivity.  He accepted the reality and brutality of his situation while maintaining the hope he would, one day, be free.  He didn’t set a time limit on his hope, just that “one day” it would be realized.

So many would suggest I look for the good in the present moment but they are not in my shoes.  Most do not understand what I am experiencing.  Keep your chin up, be glad you have a paycheck and be thankful for what you do have are all nice sentiments, and maybe they are words to live by to some extent, but they do not make the experience less real within me.  The present moment isn’t good, kind or forgiving compared with the hope I have for what life will be like when my hope is realized.  I must accept that my hope may never be realized.  I may never have the relationships I hope for, the daily life that I hope for, the opportunities I hope for but, while acknowledging those possibilities, I continue to hope boldly for things to happen that make no sense at this moment.

It is hope that both hurts so much for what I do not have and allows me to take one more step forward trusting that God will give me favor and bless me greatly one day.  The pain today is real and it is intense.  It is consumed with a marker that was moved, an opportunity lost, a hope not realized.  Yet more hope remains.  It may not look anything like what I am dreaming it to be in my head but it remains.

Grace and peace.

The Monster in the Past

22 Thursday May 2014

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My past, my history, is like a monster sometimes.

I remember when my daughter was young and was afraid of monsters at night.  I would pretend to write a note on her door every night.  With my special ink that flowed out of my finger, I wrote “Monsters better stay away from Kory or they will get beaten up by her big daddy!!!”  With my special finger ink, only monsters could read the message but she believed it worked because no monsters ever got her.  Of course, there were no monsters but something had made her fear they might exist and, to some degree, still does.  Even now when she comes home from college she sleeps with her closet light on.  It’s a fear of something that doesn’t exist.

My past doesn’t exist in the present but I often treat it like it does.  I keep dragging it along with me, living with it in the present moment as if it were real today.  It was real at one point and I know, intellectually, it died at the point the past became the present.  The past is dead, only a memory, so I have to ask myself why I try to make it come to life in current situations and relationships.

There is no doubt my past is a good teacher.  I want to do things very differently in a current relationship because of what I have learned in the past.  The danger is that I sometimes take the pain of the past and apply it to what is happening today even though a lot has changed.  It’s like a monster that isn’t real except in my imagination.

The challenge is to treat the past with truth that it did exist but also know that it does not live in the present moment.  I know people who won’t talk about the past at all.  They hide relationships and mistakes and failures fearing that someone will think less of them because of what happened in the past.  I have been one of those people.  I know people who will talk openly about the past and take every wound and apply it to what is happening to them today to keep people from getting too close.  I have been one of those people too.  I know people who can’t live in the present because their past haunts them too deeply.  I have been one of those people too.

I don’t want anymore special ink to keep monsters away.  I want to let the monsters die.  I want to leave them in the past and move on.  I feel myself doing that slowly but surely but it isn’t always easy.  Every now and then I let a monster come raging back in as if it were really alive and well.  It’s my imagination giving it life but I let myself do it anyway.

I’m tired of the past/monsters affecting how I see today and the future.  I’m tired of holding myself and others back by something that does not exist today.  I pray for the strength, courage and wisdom to lay the past down, walk away and live knowing today is a new day.  It doesn’t mean I can’t learn something from the past, only that the past doesn’t dictate the present if I don’t let it.

Grace and peace.

Why?

15 Thursday May 2014

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Nietzsche said, “He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how.”

I have been walking through a season or seasons of life for the past 15 years that have included a lot of “why” thoughts.  I don’t understand why I have had to go down this path.  I look back and see things I have learned that have moved me ahead but I have not been able to enjoy many of the fruits of that learning in ways I can see or understand.  As a believer in YHWH, it is painful at times to wonder why I am in seasons of pain or seasons of frustration or seasons of complete lack of vision or revelation.  I believe God has given me gifts and talents and I do not feel like I have the platform to use them effectively.  I am separated from people I love and want to be close to, want to hold on to, want to enjoy being in their presence.  I don’t know why.

Last night, I was asked how I bear what I do.  I was with someone who was struggling through some tough days.  The comment was made about how I get through my tough days and it’s honestly the why that is the answer.  I get through them because I need income to take care of my children.  I get through them because I need a job to keep moving forward because forwards is where a future lies with someone I love.  They are the why.

Bearing the how isn’t easy or pretty for me.  No one sees many of the tears I cry.  No one hears the screams when I call out to God to deliver me from this pain.  No one knows all the dark thoughts that go through my head.  Bearing the how isn’t easy or pretty.

The why, the reasons I bear this season, is beautiful.  I have an incredibly intelligent and beautiful daughter who needs me to come through for her.  I have an outstanding son, a man of character with an incredible future, who needs me to come through for him.  I have a woman in my life who is showing me what love looks like and I want to learn more from her and return all that she gives me.

I’m tired.  My body isn’t holding up well to the stress.  My mind isn’t performing at it’s highest level because of the anxiety.  My spirit is weak and I need God to hold me up more than ever.  I press on because there are people in my life I want to encourage, to lift up and to push forward.  Along with the three I mentioned, I have some incredible friends who love me for some reason and want the best for me also.  And, as weak as my faith seems at times, it is still present.  I choose to believe God has something in store for me.  So I press on.

Grace and peace.

 

I’m Sorry

13 Tuesday May 2014

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I’m sorry.

Those are two powerful words.  Said flippantly, they can create wounds that continue to fester.  Said sincerely, they bring peace, relief and hope.

After one of the most difficult, painful, heart-wrenching weeks I have faced in some time, I had a conversation that included “I’m sorry for…”  I was sorry for putting my hopes and expectations on someone else without doing a good job of communicating why I hoped for what I did and how we could be on common ground.  I also received an apology addressing the issue that was sincere and it was amazing what it did for me.

In the past, when expressing my concerns, I was met with resistance, defensiveness and a reminder of my weaknesses whether real or perceived.  Saturday, I was met with listening, calm conversation, mutual discussion and a desire to understand and work towards a better answer in the future.  And, “I’m sorry for…”

To know someone cares enough to apologize for a misunderstanding is very meaningful to me.  No one did anything that was wrong.  It was all based on some past baggage.  That didn’t matter.  We both realize the baggage isn’t something we can’t just walk away from without some time and trust.  We also both realize that we have to be aware of the other person’s hurts, wounds, fears and hopes for the future.  And, we were both sorry for the way things happened and not just sorry but also agreeing to work together to make improvements in the future.

I’m not used to receiving an apology and the power of getting one was incredible.

I’m so thankful for a woman who sees more deeply into relationship than a misspoken word or hurtful action.  I’m so thankful for a woman who looks into the future at what can be through growth and all that comes with it to imagine what a relationship can become.

I’m so thankful I am learning too.  It isn’t easy to put my heart on the line and give trust where the wounds of pain still exist.  I’ve got a ways to go but I’m learning and living and hoping and trusting.

Grace and peace.

Hard Things

28 Monday Apr 2014

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The weekend has left me drained.  Hard conversations.  Death.  A lack of understanding of what or if God is working in my life.  It was a weekend of hard things and it is a day of reflecting on hard things.

Someone I knew fairly well and though very highly of was killed in a car wreck this weekend.  Sadly, the wreck involved another family and they were killed also.  It’s a tragedy.  There is no other word I know to describe it.  Why does a mother have to die?  Why does and good woman, a servant, have to die so young?  Why did another family have to die?  God, we cry out for revelation.

Why does God sit idly by while the storms of life beat us down?  Why does God sit idly by when I want to crawl in a hole and hide?

Life is hard right now.  It’s nothing like the script I would write for myself or for so many others I know.  I know evil exists in this world and I believe in the unseen spiritual battles.  I believe in God’s power.  I just can’t understand nor have the revelation to understand why He lets me get battered around and beaten down.  I can live with the idea that there is a reason and I can live with the idea that my faith trumps my need to know what the reason is.  But, when I reach that place where my spirit is almost defeated and my faith is weak, why then?

A sweet, sweet person in my life keeps telling me I’m strong.  I appreciate the perspective because all I can feel is my grip slipping and the imminent danger of falling off the ledge.  Oh God, I cry out for revelation.

I cry out to be filled with hope again.

I cry out to be restored and be given favor.

I cry out to be returned to the people I love and who love me.

I know God has the power.  I believe He can make it happen.  So, I continue to cry out to Him.

Life is a hard thing.  So I cry out to the one who created life and beg for his mercy and grace and blessings.

I cry out.

Grace and peace.