Breaking Hopelessness with Expectancy

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Hands lift empty clay, and I remember the story this jar tells: Untouchables forced to shatter clay jars after lifting brimmed water to lips. Broken empty. No chance of being refilled meant no chance of another being defiled. It broke my heart to learn this as it does now in the remembering.

Does not empty often feel like this? Hopeless broken. Unending empty.

I felt near empty, felt it deep for 6 days of endless fever, then more days as strength slowly seeped back in to revive a body that had hardly eaten in a week. I felt it again as my small reservoir of strength was taxed in caring for each member of my family who in turn caught the flu. I felt it in my weak as arms on the steering wheel took the determination of holding a plank, pushing the small-size shopping cart through the grocery store quickly became a mission to just not black-out, signing my name felt like a skill being relearned.

The empty felt relentless, but not hopeless.

It’s a path my feet have been carefully learning—to give thanks, even the hard thanks, as Ann Voskamp writes of in One Thousand Gifts. Sweet little-boy arms wrapped around me from the also feverish 3-year-old. The comfort of the pillow from my bed while sleeping on the couch. The sun spilling through the row of windows behind the kitchen table. Sipped spoonfuls of Wolfgang Puck Chicken Tortilla soup—the first food that didn’t turn my stomach. Fresh air swirling playfully through my hair the first time I drove since getting sick.

From the outside, it may have looked like a dreadfully un-merry Christmas. But it wasn’t.

It was both empty and full.

Full of weakness but rich because we were together.

Empty can feel endless and still not be devoid of hope. Hopelessness is a resignation, but it can be broken with expectancy.

Expectant empty.

How can this be? Empty that knows its frailty but still gazes out beyond. Empty that is content in the now yet anticipates the not yet. Empty that is weak in strength but rich in hope.

Hopeless empty focuses on the crushing weight. Expectant empty focuses on the strength within that no weak can touch.

It’s in the choosing of what fills our vision—the way we see—that changes hopelessness to expectancy.

Hopelessness is like darkness that grows ever deeper; expectancy grows in turn lighter. Hopelessness looks at self; expectancy bends our gaze outwards.

How do we grow expectancy? Perhaps we find someone stuck in the hopeless empty and offer a hand? Even in our empty, we give. Even in our weak, we rely on His strength.

Today do you feel stuck in empty that is hopeless? Does your weak feel insufferable? Have you lost a job or your marriage, have a bill you don’t know how to pay, or been handed a shattering diagnosis as if you were supposed to blindly accept it? Oh, may you know that my heart goes out to you. Truly, in every way I wish I could sit beside you and share the weight for a moment.

But I know a Friend who can do far more than that. He is sitting beside you; He feels the utter depths of your painful empty. See His hands beckoning? He wants to take your void and make it fullness, bring comfort to the pain, new to the broken.

Release your empty to the One who can makes all things full—then reach behind you to help someone else who is stuck. What we teach we learn most fully ourselves. When we give, we are always able to give more than we think we begin with, because the act of giving spurs multiplication.

Listen closely in your neighborhood for stories of empty falling from worn and tired lips. Where does hope run dry? Where does the hopeless empty pool deep? Share the hope you cling to when you feel used up and empty. Put action behind your words and give an unexpected hug or meal or small act of kindness.

This is kingdom living—this is the essence of neighborhood missional living—seeing that the things God is growing in us are not meant for us alone but to help others help others help others love God and love others better.

We trust and we surrender—and expectancy grows. We give thanks and we give—and expectancy grows and grows.

A candle in the dark can light endless more.

So let’s begin with one.

One candle that needs lit. One neighbor who needs hope. One hopeless empty that needs broken with expectancy.

May we know our empty, but let it be expectant empty.

I pray for all who currently feel sharp the empty—may you find comfort in letting it fall into the outstretched, nail-marred hands. May you turn hopeless empty to expectant empty in helping light a hope candle for a neighbor in the dark. And may your own hope grow as you continue to give it away.

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