Hope for the Hopeless

Most days I am thankful that I even have moments, sometimes hours, of feeling like normal me. Other days I am consumed by the moments I don't, when I start to wonder when I will be "me" again. I can see all God has taught me over the months of darkness. I know He did not cause the darkness or lead me there maliciously. Yet there are times when I get angry. Why did you allow it? 


I look at my husband and wonder how he can put up with it. How he has the strength to comfort me, even in his own mourning. I look at my children and hope they can forget. Hope that any sadness won't scar into bitterness, but that time will heal and the good times will make the bad times a mere memory. They will have plenty of hardship in their own lives. I really hate the idea of adding to it.

Some days I feel the beauty of pain, and the hope of a future without it. Other days I get angry, and I question, and cry a tearless cry that wrenches me deep down where the pain still resides. Some days I keep it together. I smile and laugh, and you wouldn't even notice. The other days you won't see me. The ones closest to me do, and I see the fear in their eyes. Will it all start again?

This is not a cry for pity. Even in my pain, I can now feel hope, and that is worth sharing. Because the hopelessness I have felt is the worst kind of pain and I beg God never to let me there again. I simply want to reach out and say: You are not alone. Be weary, be afraid, be angry, but don't give up hope. And if you can't help it then know you are not alone. And if you can't feel that, it's ok too. You are not alone regardless. Hope will come again. Beauty will come again. It may not erase the dark times, but it will make them worth it. I hope.

God speaks to me through dreams, through music, writing, people, nature, and moments. I am thankful for this because I don't have the strength to open His book. There is a lot of healing to come before I can do that. Send me verses. I can handle those. Send me verses written out, don't make me flip through pages. There is hurt there I know needs healing, but I am not there yet. Send me verses and even if I turn away from them at first, they reside in my heart and I hear them and with them comes hope.


One day I may gather the strength to tell the story of what my last year looked like, the last few months in particular. For now the bits and pieces I have already shared will have to do.