I Just Want to Be OK: My Journey towards Hope

So this year has been very tough for me. Here are a few of the "reasons": Playing catch-up with finances and never quite feeling out of the red. Kids going through their challenging stages of toddler/pre-schooler—the terrible two’s and three’s so to speak. One turned four and got better when the other one turned two and we’re back there again. Soooo, it’s also good birth control for me to stop growing this family! Ha! It doesn’t help that Aaron is gone from 9:30-8:15 every day (ends up being that long because of his commute).

I'm adjusting to a lack of friends to hang out with during the day. In SC, I was immersed in a few groups of ladies that I could depend on for support not only during the day with my kids, but at night for coffee or just hanging out “dates”. Here in Baltimore though we are starting this community thing—we also have our own families and at night I want to hang out with my husband since I don’t see him much during the day... It just takes time to find a niche of friends, the round-about kind of friends that just already know you—that you don’t have to “work” to hang out. I still have a bit more journeying and discovering friends here---but I do have a few and that helps. I kinda like having a bit more than a "few"...but that will come in time.

This year I also lost my G’mama. She was my last grandparent. It was a blow on one hand, but also something that had been building a bit…and a real sense of release for her (and for us). Now she has no more pain. Now she is free. I have something I am writing to her---of the things I wish and the things I loved--it's not ready to be shared yet.

I could probably go on and on about particulars of my day to day that have made this year difficult, but it becomes just details at this point. There aren’t huge humps or bumps—just life. Regular stuff that goes with moving to a “foreign” place to me. Very different culture *one that I do appreciate and enjoy actually…*

…for all the "reasons"---when I think about them, they seem a bit miniscule compared to my friends that have cancer or my friends' children with major heart conditions etc... So whatever the "reasons" -- this was my year that I lost. I lost hope.  I lost a real sense of purpose for my life. I lost a real connection with my savior...and as it turns out, of all the things to lose HOPE  is a pretty big one. It sort of gives you a reason to keep going. Something to go toward. There is real freedom in hope. Therefore life without hope is....well...hopeless (for lack of a better word). I think the hardest part of this journey was the discovery that I didn't have hope anymore--that was the darkest part. I had been on a search for my year word (something I've been doing instead of New Year's Resolutions---a focus if you will on ONE WORD). Last year it was abide. And this year it took me a couple of weeks. I was trying to isolate what the core of my heart was saying. What my God was saying to me about "my word". And then it came to me. HOPE. It was sort of that moment for me where it all came together. For all those nights I cried myself to sleep. For all those moments of anger that I didn't understand. For all the outbursts over a messy house  or stubbing my toe/leg/arm etc on the wall/table/corner/bed...HA! It was the moment when I realized it's the thing I lost this year, and God wants it back--he wants to give it back to me.   It's ironic that that was the moment I realized I had lost hope at the same time that I found it. Because my losing hope was helping me rediscover it. So that's where I am now. 3 months into my Hope journey and I find it growing in me more and more---each day there is a new HOPE within me. I'm finding that I want it. I see how much I need it now. The days I start crying for "no reason", and have outbursts about______________, those are the days I realize something is slipping, some hope it trying to escape. It's a good reminder for me and my heart to reconnect with Jesus and cry to him---or yell at him whatever the emotion I'm feeling because on this journey he is the one to help. Can't imagine trying to do this alone. Even if "alone" means I have my family... without Jesus to hold us, we would be in a constant state of panic and despair. It's fun actually, this rediscover of hope. I find it in the little places. Like a loving hug from my child, or a song that touches my heart. I find in conversations that are real. And in being real myself. I find it in worship and sometimes in the most random Pandora song.

This last thought I want to share is the song God used to show how hopeless I was. It's a fun song, but it's sad in elements. AND it made me cry--the kind of cry that shakes your shoulders and makes your breathing erratic. It made me cry because it was what I wanted in that moment--"to be okay". It's exciting because I know I will be.
*Click on "to be okay" for link to the song: "I Just Want to be OK" by Ingrid Michaelson*