What Hope

God...

My God...

What this life is...

It's hard.

So hard.

It tears at me, ripping at my mind, my heart.

It longs to take my soul.

My God...

As I walk through the valley of the Shadow of Death...

Lord...

I'm so scared.

I don't know what to do. I don't know where to go.

I don't know how to deal with all of the questions, with all the answers, with all of the thoughts, the emotions, the endless gnawing in the very pit of my soul, the unbearable burning of this hole in my chest.

And I feel so lost, so helpless as the tides pull me under, farther, time and time and time again.

My God please save me!!

I'm so scared to drown...

Please...

Help.

Please.

For all my wisdom, how foolish I am.

For all my knowledge, how fruitless I am.

For all my strength, how powerless I am.

For all my love, how selfish I am.

For all my passion, how sorrowful I am...

God, my God....

Why?!

Why can I not see the glory of your wisdom, your knowledge, your strength, your love, your passion?

Why is my focus, I...I just can't seem to reign it in...

I stumble, I fall, again and again and again.

And I'm just so tired.

So tired...

My mind, constantly running, thinking, over-thinking, longing to be satisfied, my heart burning and yearning for its passions to be fulfilled, but still I am left lying here face down in the muck and mire of this miserable thing called life.

Alone. All alone.


My God.


Do not save me.


My heart simply cannot take it.


And yet here I stand, spotless.

Still broken, yes, but not destroyed.

Still tired, yes, but not alone.

My heart aches, but it has not yet stopped beating.

My mind spins, but the shadows have not yet overcome it.

My focus, it slowly sharpens, and even now I can see it.

See why. How.

And I feel just a shred of hope. Oh what hope.

I see a promise, a love so unimaginable and breathtaking that I remember what it is to breathe.

And why it is I draw breath.

And I lift my head.

And I walk.



My God, I cannot thank you enough for the focus you have given me, after it has been shifted and clouded for so very long. And that focus, I see, is you and you alone. My Love.
I thought that's what I had been doing, where I had been, and I know that's how I started out, but somehow, somewhere along the way I became selfish, even prideful, my priorities warped to where I was able to lie to myself for so very long. And I'm so sorry, my Love, my God.
But your passion for me never failed, never even faltered. You waited, and you have shown me in the most marvelous of ways how what you are, what you have, is so much better than the plans I had concocted.

And I praise you that still, you fill me with hope. And that your promise still holds true.

I will see love.

Not how I had planned, no.
And certainly not by by own power or ability.
But still.
My heart longs to see its passions fulfilled, and my God I know you have not given me this heart and these passions to watch me self-destruct. I am only human, and this heart you have given me is far too weak to take the love I so desperately desire being stripped from my life. So I pray with all that I am that God, even if you must break my heart, please do not let it shatter. Because that I cannot take.

Please, my God, guard my heart as I so long to guard my love. Continue to pursue me as I continue to pursue my love. And though I do not know why you do, I praise you for continuing to lavish me as I so desire to lavish my love. And I praise you for being my first love, and for giving me a passion, joy, and excitement to share with reckless abandon this love with my love.

And I will praise you.
Be it with tears of joy...
Or tears of sorrow.
And I will praise you in the joy of my sorrow.

Will it be hard? Oh yes, without doubt.
Will I hurt? Probably, at times.
Will I worry? Yeah, a little. But I am just human.
Will I grow weary? Again, I am just human.

Will I fail?

It is quite possible.

And that scares me to death.

But will I lose my passion? I pray never.
Will I lose my focus? My God, please no.
By your grace, and your power alone, I will find my love. As I've already found it in you. And that, I can never lose.

Will it be worth it?

Yes. Oh, yes.

And my God, I pray with all I am that the passions you have embedded in my heart will also fill the heart of my love, so that my love lacks nothing, wants nothing but you and your Love.

And God...thank you for setting me free.

What hope. Oh, what hope.