Finding the Hope especially in Unsettled Times

Posted on January 29, 2020 by DOLPHINSLivingSprings

beach storm with hope

I just love those times when everything is going well, life is good, family’s doing well. A long time ago, I learned not to allow myself to dwell on the anxiety of when the next shoe will drop. Life is too short. Now when those nice, good smooth times come I live deeply into them. Continually I thank God for all the blessings I can name in those times. I breathe deeply of the life giving spirit filling myself and healing. Seeing, hearing, smelling, touching, sensing God’s presence and saying yes to my Creator’s invitation to join in the great joy of giving life everywhere I can. I’ve learned to be intentional about these times because I’ve learned that there are times when all this becomes so hard to see, sometimes even impossible to recognize and by being so intentional in the good times I can remember them when the haze becomes overwhelming, even blinding. I follow the breadcrumbs planted along the way.

The hard, blinding suffering of our lives and living can so easily turn our hearts to stone. Our eyes can become blind to blessings forever. Our hearts can become cold and angry forever. In these difficult times we can reject God, stomp our feet and insist that because we don’t understand what’s happening, God can’t be good. What kind of benevolent loving God would allow children to suffer? What kind of all powerful God would allow good people who have dedicated their lives to God’s ways to be tortured, abused or attacked in the many ways we’ve seen and experienced? Why does God give suffering a voice? And why would we serve such a God?

Platitudes have no place in this discussion. Why God, why? Sticking our heads in the sand and pretending this doesn’t exist doesn’t work. Getting angry at God, at our neighbors, our families, everyone doesn’t work. Becoming an island onto ourselves doesn’t work. Digging our heels in and stamping our feet throwing temper tantrums of various manifestations never works. None of it works. Pulling away from others, pulling away from God … none of it works. So what are we to learn from all this? How do we put the yin and yang of life together and survive?

These are some of the things we’re going to discuss and take to the kitchen of our faith over the course of 6 weeks. We’ll be using Lysa Terkeurst’s book: It’s Not Supposed To Be This Way alongside our Bibles and our life experiences. Come join us. You can participate for all six weeks or however many works for you. The SE District Office of the United Methodist Church is providing the books for free for the first 10 people to sign up. You only need to pay $10 per session or $50 for all six sessions. Your weekly time commitment would be 1 group session and 4 days of 20-30 minutes private study.

Let’s work together. Alone can lose our way or together, we can choose to follow the breadcrumbs.