Losing hope was never something I planned on doing.
Hope used to be my best friend, but at times hope was mistaken for temporary lights. To me, hope was disguised as a cloudy day.
I will never forget how much I hated being alive. I hated breathing, walking, talking. Especially that day. It was the first Sunday I went to church after being in rehab, and I honestly wish I could testify to some God-moment where I experienced some magnificent light and everything suddenly made sense. But I can’t.
The entire service I wanted to walk out of that building and run as fast as I possibly could. I wanted to be somewhere else. Anywhere else. In that moment of walking out of church – possibly walking into my next suicide attempt – a friend stopped me. Later, we drove to a massive open field in the middle of the mountains.
As we got out of the car, it started to rain. But not the pouring rain you see in the movies – it was light, soft raindrops. Standing in the middle of nowhere, vulnerable and broken, I had no hope. I could not see how anything good could come out of the place that I was in.
I felt hopeless.
As the mist of the surroundings covered our bodies in that field, my friend prayed for me. When you get to a point where you do not want tomorrow to happen, prayer is not something you want. Prayer is mistaken for weakness. Prayer is giving up. Or at least that’s what I thought. That’s what society taught me. He prayed a small child-like prayer and we got into the car and left.
May I tell you a secret? That child-like prayer was not my destination of hope – but after that prayer I knew where to find it. I knew that my quest had reached its destination, and that I had found the one thing that would become my weapon in every fight. I knew that hope – real hope – was found in Jesus.
Today I choose hope. I choose Jesus.
Don’t stop reading! I know this may sound like just another Christian cliché but it is as real and true as it can get. The fact is, until we make a choice to make our hope-destination Jesus, we will constantly get stuck in temporary things. Things that will fail us.
It’s no secret that we live in a time where hope is hard to find. We live in a world where hope is hidden, or portrayed as wishful thinking. But Jesus promises that if we look for Him, we will find Him. And in Him lies the hope that we need. The hope that will not fail us.
“If you look for me wholeheartedly, you will find me” – Jeremiah 29:13
Is your hope based on temporary things? Or is your hope founded in the solid rock that is Jesus?