Even In Our Darkest Moments We Still Carried Hope

A kid jumps off a bridge.

A woman commits suicide; a teacher, wife, mother.

Another student in my hometown takes his life. 

And I can't make sense of this world. 

Why one who wanted to live is gone and these that don't want to live take their own life. 

It all swims around in my head and my heart feels like it wants to burst. 

I can't imagine what it must feel like to have no hope; to not want to live. 

Because even in my darkest moments, 

when the grief was overbearing and the pieces of my shattered heart were scattered everywhere as my son left this earth and the memory thief knocked profusely on my dads door and cancer waltzed into our daily conversations and the joy thief set up residence, 

we still carried hope. 

There was still the torch of the One who called our names and 

breathed the holy breath into our beings. 

There was still a corner to turn. 

Light, illuminating the dark path. 

Always a step ahead even in the deepest dark.

The cross. 

The work done on our behalf. 

To live without hope is beyond my understanding. 

Yet. I get it. 

I get how life can be crushing. 

How the weight can make you dig deep and leave you paralyzed. 

How putting one foot in front of the other requires every ounce of your being. 

Your entire focus. 

We have not been promised an easy life. 

God has said we would have trials. 

James 1:1-2

Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds,because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance.

He also showed us how we should live in the face of the trials. 

They will come. 

And we will learn from them.

God will be there. 

He will hold us and carry us.

 Even through the darkest of nights. 

For those that are depressed though, they can not see that.

 It takes intense modern medicine and intervention. 

Even the strongest believer, who lives on hope and serves with their hands and feet,

 is not immune to the ravages of the joy thief. 

So, on this day when the struggles of this world threaten to pull me under, 

when my heart breaks with missing my child and knowing the hurt for some is so great they will end their life on earth,

 I have to release it all at the foot of the cross. 

I need to leave it there. 

Because the pressing in is too much. 

I lift my eye to the heavens. 

To the babe, born in a manager, so we might live. 

The incarnate; God with us. 

Immanuel. 

The answer. 

The only hope. 

I look out my window and the landscape is being transformed 

as white fluffy flakes descend from the sky. 

A covering over the barrenness of the land. 

We have been bought, with a price. 

The cross a symbol of great hope. 

Hope for all nations and all people. 

Hope exists. 

It is in the surrender to the Holy, the letting go; that we are given life abundantly. 

Michael Card

Immanuel

The Glory of the Nations

A light for all to see 

And hope for all who will embrace His warm reality