Hope

It comes back to being thankful. A stumble to the kitchen sink for a glass of water. Dry morning mouth and a numb skull. You peer over the mound of dirty dishes lying there in the sink and you wonder why they weren't done before bed. 

This is the time to slowly breath in and out while you gulp down that water, the very meaning of life in that moment. It's as simple as, "Thank you God, for my dirt and my sink and my need for water/YOU."

While you pack a few lunches for your working men, you breathe more prayers. You know they will have a few giants in their day, everyone does, and so you put them in God's care. But you are weary from the battle. 

You open your morning read, a verse of the day and another little inspiration that encourages you to face pain and to go through it willingly; to stop seeking instant gratification and resolving of whatever current issue you face. 

Yes but...your mind scrambles to examine the heart and to think about the fact that you went to bed last night clinging to the rock, a ledge in fact, for a reprieve. You wanted relief from the pain...you needed it, and so you took a Tylenol and shut your thinking down and clung to that rock ledge. Oh yes... guilt lifted now, you realize it wasn't a run away, it was a rest before continuing the hike.

Weary from the storms...a problem we all face. Some face more than others. Or not. I have been lonely in my storm because my husband is in a tornado of learning medical terms and taking a lab class and driving to Spokane and working the ER. Yes, that is another storm. I can't make it go away for him but I can figure out not to ask him to enter into my storm too. 

Why storms and battles? Why are some more tortured mentally? What is the balance of learning to not think so much or not thinking at all?

And then there is HOPE peering out at me from Romans 8:18-28. It is supposed to be this way. Suffering is present; it serves a purpose. We are still being created. We are being shaped by our battles, what we choose is paramount to our eternal rest. We don't look at the battle; we look at what the battle is doing, how it is hewing away the earthly in us and changing us constantly.

It's not cliches. Truth is in these feeble, pathetic words. Its groanings and labor pains. It's waiting. Waiting on adoption. That takes forever, it sometimes feels. Yet it is in this waiting and being created that we learn patience(going through, not around) and have hope. 

Hope isn't possible if we know the outcome. That is why we can only get a glimpse of Heaven and Rest. And to show we do hope, we pray and we struggle. We realize the battle is doing something of glory even while we hurt. 

And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are called according to His purpose. V.28