Faithful Paradox

I spent the bulk of my morning on Monday decluttering many spaces in my home. I combed through my own closet and got rid of clothing that I had not worn over the winter. I dug out countless “treasures” (translated mostly junky items) from my younger boys’ room. I cleaned out the linen closet. I found myself wondering how I could have no fewer than 10 extra flat sheets and zero extra fitted sheets?

In the process of cleaning, I also found myself wondering how it is that there is a single snow boot and a single Chaco with no pair to be located within the walls of our home. The sandal I can rationalize; maybe we went to float in the river or to the pool and it got left on its banks. The snow boot is a bit more curious to me, as most often, when one leaves the house wearing snow boots, the weather demands one returns with two boots on his feet.

Regardless of the mystery, I have bags and bags of items ready to take to drop off at the local thrift store. Outside of cleaning out Ezra’s room after he died, I realize this is the first time I have tackled many of these spaces in the last four to five years. When one lives in survival mode, it’s easy to shove items onto storage shelves and into the backs of closets and drawers, forgetting about them altogether. As I cleaned and decluttered, I thought about what it is to live in survival mode.

We moved to Colorado 15 years ago and if I’m honest, I think we have lived in survival mode for the majority of our time here. We moved here to plant a church and between laboring to be faithful in that, combined with two sons given a one-in-three survival chance for different illnesses, one made it and one didn’t, a developmentally disabled son who battles epilepsy, vicious cycles of anxiety, financial ruin from medical expenses, and just the regular rigors of life, I think I have grown so accustomed to living in survival mode that I’m not sure what it is to live otherwise.

I don’t share those things for sympathy as I am well aware that there are many who have stories that are far more painful, full of loss, more stressful and difficult than my own. I think the reality is, however, that whatever story God writes for us, there are seasons or maybe even years where we simply survive; we cling to God, knowing he will give us endurance, but thriving doesn’t even seem to be possible.

For years, I had the thought of, “I just need to get through this and then we will be able to thrive.” The “and then,” however, never came. As I decluttered today and took time to clear out years worth of accumulated stuff, I spent some time thinking and praying.

I feel like I’m in a season where God is asking me to step out in courage; courage to learn to hope again, to dream, to anticipate good. If I’m honest, this is really hard for me. It feels that there have been so many years of difficult, and in many ways we are still walking some difficult paths, that I eventually stopped waiting and hoping for the “and then.”

In some ways, this is good and right. This world is broken and wrecked by sin. When we overcome one trial, there will always be another one waiting in the wings. This reality points our ever searching hearts towards heaven. Even in pain, however, there is still so much good and beauty in this world.

Learning to hope again feels like the clutter in my house; it’s there, but it’s shoved in the back of the closet or hidden in the recesses of the storage shelves, never really seen or thought of. Even as I pull it out, dust it off, consider whether it’s worth keeping, in many ways, it seems easier to shove it in a bag and get rid of it than figure out if it’s worth holding on to.

As I consider God’s heart for me, I don’t think this is what God wants for me, his daughter. I think he wants me to be, “joyful in hope, patient in affliction” (Romans 12:12). I think he is the, “God of hope [who] fills [us] with all joy and peace in believing so that by the power of the Holy Spirit, [we] may abound in hope” (Romans 15:13). I know God wants me to press into these dark corners of hope. His heart for me is that I would abound in hope.

The truth is, I’m scared. I’m scared to hope for more than endurance. I can recognize that I have, at times, had hope in healing rather than in the Healer. I’ve had hope in the provision rather than in the Provider. I can see the misplaced hope, and yet the reality is that when it comes down to hoping, it’s really hard to separate hoping in God from hoping in the things he can do. It’s not wrong, and in fact, it’s a beautiful piece of faith, to hope that God will move. It’s asking that God’s kingdom would come, that his will would be done on earth as it is in heaven.

It’s difficult and painful, however, when God’s answer time and again is “no” or “not in the way you had hoped.” Over time, with disappointment after disappointment, hope gets shoved into the back of the closet and sort of forgotten. If you’re really pressed to remember, you know it’s there, but it’s not something you really access very often. You know that God will give you endurance. You know that God will not fail you. You know he will hold your faith, but hoping for more feels risky. In many ways, I feel like I’m in a place where hoping for more feels like I’m setting myself up for disappointment once again.

With every disappointment, I am learning more and more how tethered to this world my hope had become. I am learning that my hope, although not wrong, has been more deeply rooted in seeing God act today rather than in trusting his promises for the future. I see it in my own heart. I understand it, but that doesn’t make it any easier to untangle my heart and learn to be joyful in hope.

This is still something I’m trying to learn to navigate. What does it look like to have rightly placed hope in the midst of loss and devastation? I know the theology of it but allowing that theology to affect my heart, allowing the truth to begin to take down the bricks of the walls of self protection I’ve unintentionally built around my heart is an altogether different story.

I am reminded of God’s people who hoped for a coming Savior for hundreds of years. They waited patiently and trusted God to provide what he promised. When that Savior came, it was not in the way people thought he would come. He was not the political revolutionary they had hoped would arrive; he was better. He came as a humble and lowly servant. He was one who would be here with me, cleaning out my closets, dusting off long forgotten pieces of life, unpacking boxes and reminding me that hope doesn’t always come in the ways we thought, but it can be better than we could ever dream.

I’m grateful that God uses the mundane moments in life, the less than desirable projects to whisper truths into my heart. He has always been one who brings beauty from the unexpected. He has promised good from devastation. His timeline is rarely what I would expect, and yet I can trust that somehow, as I risk hope once again, he will meet me. I can trust that, “hope [will not] put [me] to shame because God’s love has been poured into [my] heart” (Romans 5:5). It does not make it any less scary or risky, but I can be sure it will be good.