I Don't Want to Do This Anymore... Broken Hope

Just a few days prior to the incident, I'd mustered up the courage, and hung hope on a galvanized pole suspended, quite fragily, between doubt and belief. It wasn't ONLY about the birds that I had hoped would find the Mason jar feeders we'd hung on our milk can contraption. It was so much deeper than that. It was about the birds that didn't find the feeders, and how we had hoped that life would come in some form right to our backyard. And...It did. Encouragement finally came and successfully muffled doubt when the birds found the seed we had lovingly placed for them. (If you would like to read the full story, you may do so HERE.)


Five short days after the birds came, when hope had a heartbeat, an unexpected gust of wind whipped underneath our red patio umbrella and shot it like a weapon directly towards the milk-can-clothesline-pole-miniature-bird-sanctuary-thingy. Sigh. Hope alive crashed into a thousand pieces of glass on the ground, and birdseed scattered... EVERYWHERE. IronMan and I stood in disbelief. It felt like we had mustered all of the hope between us to allow this precious contraption to become a symbol of hope to our aching, wondering hearts. I looked at IronMan, and I said, "I am done. I am so done."

HERE LIES GOOD OLD HOPE... DEADER THAN A DOORNAIL... WHICH IS PRETTY DARN DEAD.

I don't want to do this anymore. This roller-coaster of hope, death, hope, death, hope, death, hope, death. We are tired...so tired.

 NO! I DON'T WANT TO DO THIS ANYMORE!

I am tired of something going wrong every turn of the corner. I am tired of things NOT being in our favor. I am tired of having to fight for everything. EVERYTHING. I am tired of feeling like we have an enemy attacking us, and we never seem to catch a breath. I am tired of working hard and not getting the full benefits of that hard work. I am tired of seeing my IronMan work endless hours and there not being enough to make ends meet. I am tired of praying and praying and praying that we will make it, and we always end up on the edge. I am tired of wondering why prayers seemingly go unanswered, and why God is allowing this...

HE HAS TO BE ALLOWING THIS.


What do you do when the vulnerable, precious hope you have lifted to God crashes, and all that is left are useless shards laying on the ground? Honestly, this has been indicative of the last 18 years of our journey. We are beginning to wonder if something is wrong with us. I have to believe that I am not alone in that question. What hard are you facing? What tragedies are in your past that cause you to question, too? I want you to know, whatever it is that haunts from the past or weighs on you presently, or a combination of the two, you are not alone.

YOU ARE NOT ALONE!

So what are we to do about this? As much as I would like to crawl under a rock, find a cave to hide in, or run off deep into the mountains with my family, we can't do that. I know it might not always feel this way, but...

NO MATTER HOW BAD IT IS, IT COULD BE WORSE. IT REALLY COULD.

I am not diminishing the ache, grief, shame, wounds, or struggles you are facing. I promise. But I know even in the midst of the deepest of griefs, even compounded griefs, there are still GIFTS. There is still LIGHT. We can find HOPE.

I know. I know that it probably feels like it cost you just about everything to hold your hands cupped together with little bits of hope dripping through your fingers to ask God, one more time, to please show up and do something, and it hurts when it feels like hope dissolved.

We have to dig deep, dear ones. We must. We cannot let broken hope have the last word. We have to look at those jagged pieces of shattered hope and find a way back... AGAIN.

I looked at those shattered pieces of glass on the ground, and I couldn't even cry. I felt numb. It was such a minor thing in the grand scheme of things, but it felt like the last thing my weary heart could handle. The broken glass pieces and hope of tending to sparrows tumbled on the ground right along with my heart. All I could do was shake my head in disbelief. IronMan bent down and carefully picked up hundreds of pieces of broken Mason jars. I know this hurt him, too, but he scrounged around enough of something to at least begin to pick up the disaster. The next morning, he was the first customer in the store where we purchased the bird feeders. He found  one last Mason jar feeder hiding on the bottom of a shelf. It was, literally, the very last one. We combined two of the broken bird feeders to make one complete feeder.

WE PICKED UP WHAT WAS BROKEN, DUG SOUL-DEEP, AND FOUND A WAY TO OFFER A FRAGMENT OF HOPE, YET AGAIN. IT FELT LIKE TAINTED HOPE, BUT NONETHELESS, IT WAS HOPE.

I am choosing to believe that even if God has been allowing this hard journey, He must be forging something in the deep. The alternative is to believe nothing at all, and that doesn't seem like a good option to me. Even in the midst of some extremely dark circumstances, I have been carried by Him. I also have to believe that somehow, some way, even if it doesn't feel okay, we will make it, and you will make it. We may cry a river and heave from the depths of our beings, we may feel angry, frustrated, devastated, wounded...but at some point we will be breathing again, and sometime the darkness will lift.

FIGHTING FOR HOPE IS THE BEST DEFENSE AGAINST THE DARKNESS THAT WE HAVE. IT IS WORTH FIGHTING FOR.

I took the leftover top of one of the broken Mason jar feeders and made an itty-bitty lantern, about the same size as the hope we could offer. I put a tea light in it to shine against the darkness that comes when everything presses against hope. We don't yet know the outcome of our current circumstance, but we are trusting, and with hands cupped, we have lifted to God in our broken-best the most hope that we could offer...itty-bitty.

"And this hope will not lead to disappointment. For we know how dearly God loves us, because he has given us the Holy Spirit to fill our hearts with love." (Romans 5:5 NLT)


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