what it isn't

Day 7 of 

It's easy to mix up words, their meanings, and their pronunciations.  Sometimes it's even pretty cute.  If you are a mama you know there are a few words that your babies say the wrong way that somewhere inside you would kind of like them to never figure out, or at least not anytime soon.

  My oldest baby boy is a way too big 7 1/2 year old.  Every time he gets ready to build a new lego set he has to get out the "constructions" to see what he's supposed to do.  My little heart leaps every time he says it.  I have seriously sat next to him during an entire lego building process, not to help, but to just hear him say "ok what do the constructions say to do next?"

Unfortunately, not all mistakes are cute and some can really cause some problems.  I bet the autocorrect feature on cell phones alone has caused many a dramatic situation as words and information get crossed and feelings get hurt.  Don't even get me started on the inability to read someone's "tone" in a message.  I have sent many a self correct, clarification text or email just to make sure that what was said was taken in the way it was meant to be taken so that drama does not ensue! 

Then there are those words with multiple meanings.  I am not talking about homonyms like my son hit a bat with a bat (which he didn't do but totally would).  The ones I am referring to specifically are the words that, in the world have one meaning, but in the bible and in our Christian lives have another meaning entirely.  For example, the word joy.  In the world, we think of joy as meaning happiness that comes from success or good fortune.  In our Christian lives, we know joy can be found in the deepest sorrow, because joy doesn't depend on the situations you're in, joy comes from being in Christ.  Another one of those words is hope.

  I use the word hope very flippantly sometimes and I have made it a goal to try and catch myself from using it in the worldly way.  Not because I think people who use hope in its varied definitions are terrible people, but because I want to train my heart and mind to focus instead on the true Hope.  It is seriously a challenge that I might never complete!  

For example, when texting a friend "I hope you had a great week!" or thinking in your head "Oh I hope Zach gets home on time tonight", or said out loud in our house around this time of year "I hope Auburn wins!!", I'm saying I think it'd be nice if that happened.  I am throwing up a request in the air and wishing it comes true for my own benefit or sometimes for the benefit of others, but rarely ever for the benefit of my Spirit.

Tomorrow I will share what Biblical hope is, but today rest assured that a fleeting wish is exactly what it isn't!

you don't look hopeless

Day 6 of 

Talking about Hope without talking about hopelessness doesn't make too much sense.  When dealing with opposites it's essential to know both.  Usually the very definition of one is used to define the other because if one didn't exist the other wouldn't need to.  Without right you don't need left.  Without backward, forward is the only way you can move.  Without light, everything is dark.  The same goes for this word Hope.  If hopeless didn't exist Hope would not be necessary.

Hopelessness can eat away at the inside of you where the light can not touch it. But now think about what it does on the outside.  Much like an infection in a wound, or rot in a piece of lumber, one would think that if there are all those things going on inside your heart and mind like we talked about a couple days ago, that your outward self would reveal it.  Whether it was through your actions towards others, your demeanor and countenance, the words you say, or a combination of all, something would show.  One would think that just by observing the behavior of another, friend or foe, stranger or neighbor, you could gauge their feelings and therefore get a sense of how they are doing in this life we're all living together.  Unfortunately most often, one would be wrong.

Most often, in my humble opinion and limited experience, knowing how someone is doing and what they are feeling by observing and talking rarely reveals the truth.  Even if you are closer to that person than anyone, and are asking all the 'right' questions, the true heart could still not be what you are getting.  The reason is really simple.  We know how to fake it.  We are experts at faking it.  Some of us could have shelves full of Oscars just in the category of faking it.

As you become an adult you develop and fine tune the qualities your parents always tried to teach you like self control, using polite phrases, manners, small talk, etc.  Those are all good things and definitely make you more desirable to be around, however like all good things, they can be twisted just a hair and become a detriment.  When you are skilled at proper etiquette and decorum, or honestly just skilled at not coming off as a jerk, then you are skilled in the art of hiding in plain sight.  You are, with little effort, able to fool those around you with your words and actions, because you are able to mask your heart and therefore hide the hopeless within you.  And even if everything inside you is screaming to just say what you're really feeling and spill it all, taking that step of letting it show can be a huge one to take.

"Fine" and "good" are answers we are all too good at giving.  Last week while pushing my cart full of groceries at Publix, the well mannered stockist, in his well mannered voice, asked how I was doing today.  I gave the correct "I'm doing well how about you" answer, in which he returned with an "I'm great thank you".  It was a very pleasant exchange that would surely have pleased his manager whom I'm sure makes certain his employees are pleasant, because it is definitely where shopping is a pleasure.  But was it true.  For either of us?

Then there is the all too common Sunday exchange when you pass an acquaintance in the hall and they say "good morning, how are you today?"  Chances are they too are just being polite are expecting the typical response of "good, how are you?".  But inside, you are thinking about the real answer, and about all the things that are not just good, and you wonder what it would be like to actually say everything you are thinking.  

Everything I share here is another lesson on my road to clinging to Hope, and not to myself.  Another piece of my heart that was mined.  Another part of me I had to see.  Though I've never been good at hiding my feelings with my facial expressions, this was still a familiar part of my everyday and I know I'm not alone, which is why I'm sharing with you now.  I am a recovering perfectionist who was shown the real life danger of  hiding my imperfections, and is ready to share this with my friends, with my family, and with you who I might not know and might never meet, so that you can see that it is not only ok to share our true selves, but it is what we were created to do.  

We were made, through our identity in Christ, and not by our own strength to 'encourage one another and build each other up' (1 Thes 5:11), to 'bear one another's burdens' (Gal 6:2) and remind each other that 'He who began a good work in you will be faithful to complete it'. (Phil 1:6)

Just imagine what it would be like if we not only gave the real answer and shared our hearts when asked, but if we expected and desired a real answer from the ones to whom we ask those questions.  What if instead of giving and expecting the 'typical', we gave and expected transparency?  What if we each set the example of sharing our hearts, sharing our sins, sharing our struggles, and desired others to as well?  Not to condemn them, but to encourage them in their walk, and point them towards the only One that can help.

What if instead of hiding our hopeless, we bared it so that Hope could come in?

song of hope

Day 5 of

Every Sunday throughout this challenge I will be sharing one of the many songs that encouraged me during the last year.  Please read these words and if you can find it to listen to and let it speak to your heart as well!!

My Portion and My Strength

Ellie Holcomb

Your voice calmed the wind and the sea

Can you calm these storms inside of me?

Help me to stand

on the promise that You are holding my right hand

Help me to know

that even when I lose my grip You won't let go

Help me believe

that You will be my portion and my strength

Your voice gave the blind the gift of sight

Can you take my darkness and turn it into light?

Help me to stand

on the promise that You are holding my right hand

Help me to know

that even when I lose my grip You won't let go

Help me believe

that You will be my portion and my strength

Oooh (x6)

You'll be my portion and my strength

Oooh (x6)

Your voice called the man out of the grave

Can You breathe new life into this mess I've made?

Help me believe

that You will be my portion and my strength

Help me believe

that You will be my portion and my strength

You'll be my portion and my strength

it is not hopeless

Day 4 of

For me the rest of this challenge is all downhill, and I don't mean the quality of my writing.  At least I hope not!  Yesterday when I shared about it all blowing up  I could breathe a sigh of relief.  That post was the exact reason I wanted to do this challenge and the exact reason I almost didn't.  Though my prayer is to share our story to anyone who needs it for their own encouragement and for the glory of our God, at this point I have only trusted those nearest and dearest to me with it.  The ones I knew would love us anyway, regardless of the sins in our lives.  That gave fear a green light to keep  sneaking in and grabbing at my heart, trying to convince me to hide our tainted past because others might not feel the same way.  They might not understand.  

Often, oh so very often, when our Spirit is driving us towards the very thing that we need, our flesh sends us down in the opposite direction.  Instead of living in hope, we convince ourselves that it is all hopeless.

Hopelessness is a scary feeling.  Of all the negative emotions I can think of, fear, anxiety, humiliation, sadness and so on, hopelessness is the worst of all.  In fact, every other negative emotion, if left on its own to fester, will most likely take a turn down that ugly hopeless road.  Hopelessness will eat at your heart, mind and soul.  It will convince you that you are worthless.  It will convince you that you mean nothing to anyone.  It will convince you that who you are and what you've done is so terrible, or so ugly, or so imperfect that there is nothing left for you, and that just opens you up to another host of negative emotions.  Bitterness, anger, callousness, and depression just to name a few. 

To be without hope, to be hopeless, is to be stuck in a place that's impossible to get out of, desperate, despairing, down in the bottom with no where else to go and no one to turn to.  If that is not everyone's worst nightmare than it should be! 

 The only problem though is that if you've never known true Hope, hopelessness is your only option.  If you have always lived your life in the dark, you have no clue what light looks like.  Darkness is your only option.  Just like how you can not crawl out of a pit without some kind of assistance, you can not find Hope by yourself.  You can try but I promise it won't work.  It will be a long frustrating road.

There is only one true light and it comes from heaven.  Jesus said, "I am the light of the world.  Whoever follows me will NEVER walk in darkness, but will have the light of life."  John 8:12 

If any of this seems familiar in your life, please stop and think, pray, find a bible, call someone, or yell and scream at God. I promise He can take it!  Do something besides sit in the dark.  Hopelessness is not the only option.  "Light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it!" John 1:5

Fear kept trying to convince me that my story is something to be ashamed of, and much better to be left in the dark, which is the worst place to leave anything. 

Because of the hope I've placed in Him, because of the Hope that is within me, I am His child and that means "I am a light of the world.  A city on a hill that cannot be hidden!" Matthew 5:14

And if you are His child, SO ARE YOU!

when it all blows up

Day 3 of

While we've settled the fact that life isn't easy, let's move on to the times when 'not easy' doesn't even begin to explain it, and even 'difficult' doesn't touch the situation you are trudging through.  There are seasons when impossible seems like the only word to the weary soul within you, when you just want to pause life so that you can come up to the surface to breathe.  

A few years ago after reading a popular book by a most popular christian author and speaker, I learned there are three(ish) reasons you fall into a pit. Although very few things are set in stone, so if others pop into your head and it makes sense to your heart, then go with it! As long as it's not heresy that goes against all biblical truths of course ;)

 First is you dig the pit on your own, and end up finding yourself at the bottom.  Another reason is someone else throws you into the pit, either by their actions or decisions, or maybe by pure meanness and jealousy (i.e Joseph's brothers). The last reason is you trip in, due to things that just happen because we walk here on Earth.  (i.e a fire or other act of God that effects your life, cancer, etc)

While being in a dark place, no matter how you got there, is hard, the first is at least easier to understand.  There are obvious consequences to every action.  Some struggles we go through are directly attached to poor decisions we have made that cause difficulties you have to live through.  If you build up enormous credit card debt, there will come a time in life where someone is going to want their money.  If you choose to do an illegal act, you shouldn't really get upset at the law enforcement who call you out on it.

It's those last two reasons that can be rough to take.  Those last two usually come when you least expect it, like a bomb that goes off without warning, and sends everything scattered. And in the aftermath, you're left with shock, fear, devastation, tons of questions, and little energy to process it all.

A little over a year ago my own personal bomb went off in my life, destroying with it the pretty picture I had built in my mind of life and family.  A little over a year ago, my husband confessed to me that his friendship with another woman, a woman I knew quite well, had developed into not just an inappropriate friendship for a married man, but had veered over the lines into an affair.  Part of me wants to stop here and share all the idols in his life he was feeding, the briefness of that other relationship, and what God has done in his heart since then and a million other parts of the story but I won't. Not yet, because that's not the point of this.

  The point is that with his few sentences, a bomb went off. My world was rocked, and nothing would ever be how it was again.

I do not consider myself a violent person, but one of the first verses I read after this news was thrust in my life was James 1:2-4 that begins with this: Consider it all joy when you face trials of any kind. After reading that, I wanted to punch James in the face.  Seriously.  I literally wanted to take James, the brother of Jesus my Savior, and punch him in the face as hard as I could. Joy?  Seriously?  Do you know what I just found out!?!?  You want me to consider that joy!?

But here I am, almost 13 months outs from one of the most difficult situations I have ever been in, the lowest pit, the darkest cave, the messiest aftermath of the biggest bomb of my life, and I consider it all joy.  Why?  Hope.  In this situation, God taught me how to cling to Him through anything, how to cling to His promises, and has given me the sweetest relationship with my Heavenly Father that I've ever had, or could have ever dreamed of.

While my life is an open book to those with questions, and while my husband and I want to use our story to encourage anyone who needs it, and while I will unashamedly proclaim that God designed marriage to be beautiful and to honor Him and can redeem any marriage no matter the circumstances, that is not the point either, at least not the point of this post.

I am just one little person and this is just one little story.  My bomb was sparked by marital issues but there are countless others lurking around.  In just my 33 years walking this Earth I have closely known a little boy who lost his life by the hands of someone else, a middle school friend who lost his life to a brain tumor, a mother and father figure who lost their son to suicide. A school friend who lost both her parents before she entered college, a boyfriend who lost his father suddenly to a heart attack, a friend who lost her mother in the same circumstance. Family members who have fought cancer and won, and battled cancer and lost, a baby cousin diagnosed with leukemia before he reached a year old, and I could probably keep going.

But I have also seen a mother and father praise God for the blessings of their life and help others who lose a child way too early.  I have seen grieving parents talk to other teens about depression and fear and letting God in their lives to overcome them both.  I have seen two sisters become each others' family, and forge a bond nothing could separate.  I have seen communities come to the aid of grieving widows, widowers, and children.  I have seen the sick praise God to the end of their lives despite their pain, and I have seen the joy of thankfulness of two parents who get to hug a two year old warrior boy, who with his Healer, can fight the battle and win.

   The bomb that blew up my thoughts of how my family was doing also blew up my insecurities, blew up deep rooted sin in my heart, and blew up the idols I put before Him.  My God, in all His violent love and wisdom, blew my life apart for one purpose:  so he could rebuild it the way He wanted it to be. The way I needed it to be.  So He could build a life for me set on the Hope of His promises, and not the things I tried to do myself.

That is where we go from here.

Now that you know a glimpse of my story, for the next 28 days I will share different lessons I learned on my road of learning how to better cling to the God of hope when it all blows up.

it's not easy

Day 2 of

I know this isn't going to be new information for anyone, but it is one of those things that has to be said. It's one of those things that we should probably remind ourselves of everyday as we live in the trenches of a sinful world:

Life is not easy.

It's just not.  As much as we want it to be, as much as we sometimes pretend it to be, it's not, and never will be this side of heaven.

Sometimes that's really easy to believe, like when you hear about the conflict around the world, all the people losing their lives to illness and terrorism, or being abandoned, or sold into slavery and trafficked for terrifying reasons.

However, sometimes we convince ourselves that for some people, that statement does not ring true.  Don't believe that lie.  Even when you look around and see someone who 'has it all', don't be fooled by appearance.  It's just a mirage you are creating in your head. I bet 9 times out of 10, if you started a real conversation with that 'person who oozes the perfect life', they would be able to give you a list of the struggles that they face, the ways they feel insecure, and their need for something more.  For that 1 out of 10, just start praying immediately because chances are they are hiding something so deeply within themselves that they can't see the light of day.

By this time you're probably wondering why a series about Hope seems to be taking such a depressing turn.  I've got to admit I've even depressed myself a little bit in these last paragraphs, but take heart my friend because to be honest, sometimes the best thing that can happen to you is for life to NOT be easy!

If life were easy we wouldn't need help with anything, like ever.  At first glance some of you may think that that sounds pretty good. But think further about the things you have learned in life, about the people you have met, and the places you are now, because life is not easy.

I have fantastic friends who have walked alongside me in dark times.  We have carried each others' burdens and we have forged friendships that are built on solid foundations.  What would be the point of those long conversations with friends like that, talking through life's journey, if everything is all good?

I have learned more about myself through the dark times as I was searching for the light than any other times in life.  Who I am now and where I stand now is a direct correlation to life not being easy.

But most importantly, if life were easy and we could go zooming along with no problems, what would be the point of praising our Creator? What would be the point of leaning on our Savior? What would be the point of being guided by the Spirit? He is there and He is Good, and He is worthy to be praised.

  We were created to glorify God and enjoy Him forever.  To do everything for the glory of God.  Many many times that glory comes through hard and difficult times.  Unless you understand the bad you can't see the Good.

When we are told to "trust in the Lord with all our heart and lean not on our understanding", there's a reason.  The reason is that things will happen that we cannot comprehend.  Something like that may have already happened to you, or someone you are close to.  Something that caused your heart to distrust others and want to hide. But don't...because He is there to give you Hope and a future.

  

31 days of clinging to the God of Hope

This is 31 days of clinging to the God of Hope

31 posts.  31 opportunities to share what He has done.  31 ramblings that I pray will point you closer to Him.

Each day I'll be linking up the next day as it goes live, so eventually the whole series will be gathered together ready for you to click away!

* Please scroll down if needed to read day 1*

Day 2:  it's not easy
Day 3: when it all blows up
Day 4: it is not hopeless
Day 5: song of hope
Day 6: you don't look hopeless
Day 7: what it isn't
Day 8: this is Hope
Day 9: fear
Day 10: don't be distracted
Day 11: mining your heart
Day 12: song of Hope
Day 13: those days
Day 14: in the Lord alone
Day 15: finding normal
Day 16: what is your story?
Day 17: abiding

Day 18: know him
Day 19: song of Hope
Day 20: faith first
Day 21: gives and takes
Day 22: his word
Day 23: prayer
Day 24:  write it down
Day 25: community
Day 26: song of Hope
Day 27: I am His
Day 28:  our renewal
Day 29: end and beginning
Day 30: verses of hope
Day 31: thank you

Here we go.  My first try at 31 Days with The Nester. 

 I'm excited and nervous, and excited, and nervous.  I've kept a blog for our family, for the keeping of our story, for 5 plus years.  But now my husband with his much savvier skills has created for me this brand new space.  This space to share what God has done, what God will do, and the heart of mine that He is ever changing.

A heart that that reveals an inner disposition.

So welcome as I spend the next month sharing how through a difficult, but important part of my story, God taught me how to cling to Him when everything seems to blow up around you, and knowing that whatever is happening, beneath it all, there is Hope.