One Daring, Sure-Fire Way to Find Hope When You’re Hurting

It’s been one year since the biggest, littlest miracle happened. As I stand on this side, thankful for now, and also knowing not a single tomorrow is guaranteed, I think of you. 

Maybe you’re begging for it to all make sense. You might be white-knuckling a prayer because time is short and you’re scared. Or you’re looking backwards, grieving something you couldn’t fix.

Sometimes our knees find the floor because God’s nearness overwhelms us, and sometimes it’s because we’re desperate to find Him. The latter are the moments we want to believe God knows best and actually cares. Because we need reassurance that His heart is wholly, irrevocably good.

I remember the bleak notes I scratched on a paper towel months before the miracle happened. They were foreboding, hope-devoid words. The kind that turn prayers to groans and water your open Bible with tears. 

Psalm 139 became a lifeline. The words I could pray when I had none of my own. Promises to hold onto as I interceded.

To You Seeking a Miracle

I wrote pieces of the story for (in)courage and in a devotional compilation, Life Changing Stories, before we knew the outcome. As I write, on the one-year anniversary, it all feels fresh again. If you’re there, in the depth of aching and not knowing, may I read a bit from my (in)courage post to you?

He’s the sort of God who finds us there on the raw edge of all that splinters and dead-weights; the sort of God who sits with us in our pain. And though our bodies are frail and hearts are busted, His promises never waver, never break.

He is the Hope-Light in the dead of night. The Gentle Guide of tender, aching hearts. The One waiting, listening, embracing us at every turn.

If you were to pull old journals off shelves and out of boxes, you’d find records of prayers big and little answered. Not always with a yes, but with an assurance that God hears and is near.

As a kid praying about things like misplaced cell phones, retainers, and return tickets home, you couldn’t see how the practice of praying in the “now” would teach you that God can always be trusted. Through it all, you’ve learned to go to Him quickly with all your thin hopes and insistent worries, knowing that everything that matters to you weighs on His heart too. You’ve learned you have His full attention and affection. That, God holds back none of His raging love for us, no matter how He answers.

As a college student, spending countless hours with open Bible and face pressed to the carpet, you couldn’t yet see how you’d need the things that crack you wide open to remember you know God differently on your knees. But now you see the gift in seasons of stretched-out waiting, urgent praying, and good things breaking. Because grace is in the things that make you seek Him . . . and you finally see this whole time, He’s been teaching you to treasure His presence over answered prayers.

Read the rest on (in)courage.

How to Find Hope

Whatever miracle you’re praying for, whichever behind-you-pain you’re healing from, God hasn’t left. You are not alone. The story isn’t over.

No matter where you are in the grand arch of your life, there’s a present God who hurts with you. He’s holding onto you right now. Draping peace like a warm blanket around your shoulders. Dampening His fingertips with your tears.

He’s been there. He weeps too. Cares too. Hopes too—right there, standing next to you. 

Maybe you can’t see Him, hear Him, or feel God’s presence right now. If I were in the room with you, I’d hug you tight and challenge you to try something wild, bold, daring: Start giving hope away.

We’ve heard it said that the best way to learn something is to teach it. I’ve found the same to be true of hope. It grows in us when we give it away. 

What does it look like, to lend hope when we’re struggling to find it ourselves?

It’s peeling back the veneer of I’ve-got-this so others can overhear your honest prayer:

Jesus, I don’t “got this.” You do, and though I’m struggling to see how You’re good at this very moment, I praise You anyways. I’ll praise You until I believe it in my bones. Help me to trust You.

We think we need to have airbrushed faith to help those around us find their way to Jesus. But what if your winding, imperfect journey has something irreplaceable to offer? What if others benefit more from witnessing your unfolding journey than hearing far-behind you tales of God breaking in? What if your present tense life offers a hope they can borrow in the midst of their own aches and pleading prayers?

You and I get to lend hope as we learn to cling to it ourselves. We get to proclaim aloud what we’re learning to trust and believe.

And maybe that was God’s intent all along. After all, the Bible is pocked with heartache and bad decisions. We find folks filled with the Holy Spirit rather than education, preaching gospel good news far and wide. Mess ups and misfits helping others find Jesus. 

We don’t have to know all the answers to point to the Answer. 

We don’t have to be on the other side of our healing journey to nudge others to the Healer.

Nor do we have to feel joyful to praise God out loud. 

As Alli Worthington urges in Fierce Faith, we “[sing] truth not because [we feel] like it, but because [we make] the decision to fight back” against fear, anxiety, worry. When we praise God in the presence of others, especially while everything around us falls apart, we find hope—ample, not just for us, but to share.

Here’s my prayer for you today:

Jesus, be Light breaking into my friend’s dark night, hugging her tender soul. Be Truth re-writing the lies in her head. Be Joy in the midst of sorrow, Peace in the middle of her storm. 

Show her where and how and with whom to share her story as she’s living in. Grow hope in her as she gives it away.

Just a friend over here in your corner,

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