hope – EAST WILLOW PLACE

New Hope for When You’re Weary & Discouraged

The guys were taking a night to try to find normal again.

A crazy rollercoaster of experiences and emotions in the last couple weeks had shattered their world – and now they still felt unsure of which way was up. More importantly, they were unsure of what they should do next.

So they went fishing – something they knew well, something routine and ordinary.

But things still seemed askew and off – because no matter their efforts and expertise, after working all night there were only dripping empty nets, growling stomachs, and bleary, red-rimmed eyes in the grey, early morning light.

Then, a stranger walking in the early morning mist on the nearby shore called out in a friendly, fatherly way, “Hey guys, catch anything?”

Ruefully they called back, “Nope, nothing – not even after being out all night!”

Probably with a smile in his voice, the stranger called back, “Try the right side of the boat.”

Maybe they rolled their eyes at this advice, maybe they were too tired and hopeless to argue. Maybe they figured it was just so inane it was worth a shot, so they did as he said…

And immediately their net almost slipped from their hands with the weight of the heavy catch of fish that filled it to nearly bursting.

Then – after recognizing the stranger as Jesus, their newly-risen Savior and Teacher – the suddenly rejoicing, energized men were welcomed from the coldness of the morning sea to a brightly flickering fire on the beach.

Then Jesus himself, the Lord of life and Creator of the Universe, served them a hot breakfast of grilled fish and bread. (John 21:1-13)

He who should have been served instead tenderly served the same men who had recently abandoned him, denied him, and hid from being recognized as his followers. He who could have sharply reproached instead showed heart-breaking kindness.

This gracious, humble, and loving Savior is the one who cares for you and me in all our weakness and brokenness and strugglings today. When we work wearily without success, when we feel hopeless and uncertain and discouraged – He is the one who asks us to tell the truth of our lack (“Nope, we got nothing!”), and then to try again – with him.

Any outcome of our efforts is his gift. “For without me you can do nothing.” (John 15:5)

And then he welcomes us to sit with him and be warmed and fed – and he himself serves us.

This is our Lord – and in his kindness he is lovely beyond words.

I pray that you are comforted and fed today in the rich satisfaction of knowing the kindness of our King – and find in his kindness the hope to go on.

_{-Wear your crown. Carry your sword.}
Maria

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Broken & Beautiful: How to Hold Hope in the Imperfection

I felt quiet and sad. I was nine, and my only close friend was moving far away. Because I moved so much as a child, it was hard to make close friends. And by “moved” I mean different hemisphere moves, not different states or cities.

It didn’t help that I was shy, awkward, and mostly lonely. So I was almost pathetically grateful anytime another kid was friendly to me and showed kindness.

This friend had been especially sweet, and I wanted to give her a goodbye present to show her how much I cared about her – one that she could keep to remember me by.

Asking my dad to purchase a gift was out of the question: money was always tight and he would inevitably say the same thing he always did: “Make something yourself!”

I found the idea in a book of creating a little bird in a nest, using a blown egg and a little piece of egg carton. I painstakingly went through each step by myself, poking a tiny hole in the top and bottom of the egg and blowing it out of the shell, then letting it dry. I painted the eggshell a lovely aqua blue, glued on a little paper beak and two soft black paper eyes, and made a little “nest” with a painted brown cup of an egg carton, carefully gluing the egg-chick in place.

I was utterly delighted with my special gift, and very proud of my handiwork – especially since I had done it all by myself. I excitedly envisioned my friend’s joy on receiving her present.

The last day I would see my friend was on Sunday at church. That morning my dad, siblings and I all rushed out to the car to drive to church, running a few minutes late. I had grabbed the little chick and the card I had made, and placed them carefully inside the car next to my seat. Then, as I got in, I unthinkingly put my hand down to fasten the seat belt – and smashed the chick.

I was too stunned to cry, and too grief stricken to speak.

There was no point in crying. There was nothing to say.

We were already late for church, my friend was moving away the very next day, and there was no time to create anything new for her. All my hard work and loving effort was gone, and I had nothing tangible to show for it except crushed fragments of a lovely aqua blue. And it was my fault.

I have felt like that little nine year old often throughout my life. (Have you?)

I have an idea or a hope of how something I do will turn out, especially since as a believer I know that what I carry out each day is supposed to be to the glory of God.

But then, often inadvertently, I feel like I clumsily end up ruining it somehow. The gift that I had wanted to give to God of my day or my effort ends up so much less than I had hoped: a broken, shattered version of what I had envisioned. Things sometimes just end up sort of smashed and irreversibly damaged.

This is where it takes sheer stubbornness to hold on to what I know is true: God sees my heart, and He knows my intentions and yearnings. Even in the brokenness, He sees the love that I hold in my heart for Him when I offer what I have as a worship to Him. And therefore what I do has value and meaning to Him when I work out of a desire to honor Him with it.

What you do, how you faithfully keep going with your work and how you live your days – it matters.

When we deliberately choose to see our lives as something we offer up to God, even in its broken imperfection, He takes our love-gift and gauges it with a metric of grace.

As one of my favorite song lyrics say,

“So take my broken offering and make it whole/ And set my feet upon the road that leads me home/ Let me walk as one fixed upon the goal / Even though I’ve got a thousand miles to go.”

_{(Caedmon’s Call, “Thousand Miles”, Back Home, Essential Records. 2003)}

Even in those moments when all we think we hold is a crushed little egg-chick, He sees the time, care, intent, and the love that we truly offer.

“So let’s not get tired of doing what is good. At just the right time we will reap a harvest of blessing if we don’t give up.”
Galatians 6:9, NLT

– Maria

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How to Best Hold Your Broken Heart

Today my heart feels broken.

A friend I love is facing an agony of loss. In joining her in her grief, my own heart is heavy and sorrowful. There have been many prayers and many, many more tears.

And as I think of this friend in her particular pain, more loved ones come to mind who are grappling with their own unique weight of sorrow, loss, or grief.

Each precious person carries such a heavy load – unable to be measured adequately or fully comprehended except by the bearer. I feel so helpless and unable to lighten their weight, even as I take some of their sorrow to carry in my heart alongside them.

So what do we do to find hope in the dark? How do we find strength when the pain and anguish seem like the only real things and the world spins on, heedless and indifferent? What perspective should we hold to enable us to move forward?

Years ago, I read a strange and beautiful short story which I have never forgotten, and which I share an adapted excerpt from here, in the hope that it will help answer the above question.

As a brief introduction, a young wife has just delivered her first baby, who is unexpectedly stillborn. This is a great loss to both herself and her husband, who had both been eagerly anticipating the birth of their son.

In this scene, the wife has been lying in bed, grieving and weeping over her baby, and thinking a great deal. She then unexpectedly prays the following prayer to God:

“O God, if you will not let me be a mother, I have one refuge: I will go back and be a child: I will be your child more than ever. My mother-heart will find relief in childhood towards its Father.

“For is it not the same nature that makes the true mother and the true child? Is it not the same thought blossoming upward and blossoming downward? So there is God the Father and God the Son.

“You will keep my little son for me. He has gone home to be nurtured for me. And when I grow well, I will be more simple, and truthful, and joyful in your sight.

“And now you are taking away my child, my delight from me. But I think how pleased I should be, if I had a daughter, and she loved me so well that she only smiled when I took her plaything from her.

“Oh! I will not disappoint you – you shall have your joy. Here I am, do with me what you will; I will only smile.”*

This woman’s prayer is no bitter spurt of cynicism or anger.

She is not being weak in her acceptance of her loss, nor does she minimize the pain or depth of it. With courage she chooses an unusual perspective, but one in which she senses the thrum of a Truth far greater than herself:

She knows herself to be a dearly loved little girl who is under the care of a wise and trustworthy Parent, One in Whom she can trust even when she doesn’t understand why she is experiencing loss or pain.

This kind of trust is terrible and terrifying to us who have become adults and enjoy the [seeming] security of independence and self-reliance. But implicitly loving, joyful trust is natural to a young child, especially one who has utter confidence in the kindness and ultimately good purpose of their parent.

When they experience pain or sadness, a little child finds comfort in the shelter of their parent’s arms – even if the pain is not ended or the sadness is not stopped. It is enough to rest there, knowing they are held and loved.

In our grief, in our feelings of lonely sorrow, we can find solace knowing that our Father not only understands, He is able to relate well: “He was despised and rejected— a man of sorrows, acquainted with deepest grief. We turned our backs on him and looked the other way. He was despised, and we did not care.” (Isaiah 53:3, NLT)

Our part then, is to humble ourselves as little children. Choosing to place ourselves, our lives, and even our loved ones under His care, we are called to the courageous place of behaving as a little son or daughter should to their loving Mommy or Daddy. (Matthew 18:1-4)

Without negating any of the anguish we feel, and truthfully acknowledging our loss and sorrow, we can look up at Him through our tears and, with open hands, offer up what was a gift from Him in the first place.

And each step, each breath, each moment afterward, we can walk in our journey through our grief knowing that He is right there holding us up, walking with us, tenderly caring about us and the hurts we carry in our broken hearts.

“ God is our merciful Father and the source of all comfort. He comforts us in all our troubles so that we can comfort others.”
2 Corinthians 1:3-4, NLT

Are you carrying a grief in this season? I would be honored if you share it with me by replying below. I read every response, and I will pray for you.

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*Adapted exerpt from Birth, Dreaming, Death – The Schoolmaster’s Story from The Gray Wolf and Other Stories, by George MacDonald. Emphases mine.

How to Skyrocket Your Joy: The Gift of Anticipation

_{(Published as an Instagram Post on 12-17-2020)}

And the anticipation builds…

This is the first year my oldest kids voiced their understanding that waiting for Christmas was what made the day so special when it finally came.

Anticipation is a powerful joy-multiplier.
And in many ways, the time of looking forward to this holiday is a gift of time given to look inward, back, and forward –

INWARD at our hearts and lives, making careful evaluation, taking stock of whether we truly understand and cherish the gift of a Christ given to us, preparing room in our hearts just as He made room in His for us, welcoming His reign and inviting Him as rightful King of our lives.

BACK at the astonishing mercy on a broken human race who needed a Savior, expected a Conqueror, and got both – but not as they expected. The Utmost King humbled Himself to become a fragile baby born in scornful scandal and rejected even before His birth – “no room for them at the inn.”

Outcasts and celestial beings both worshipped at His birth:
All are welcome, and worship is the only appropriate response.

FORWARD to the time to come when He will return to dwell among His people once more, this time not as sacrificial Lamb but reigning Lion, when the celebration will be unprecedented and truly, deeply glorious and the joy will be perfect.

Our anticipation of Christmas is a picture of the anticipation we should hold in our hearts every day – He has come and He will come again.

We anticipate Christmas with a mere shadow of the true and weighty joy that is to come.

Even so, come.

A Fairy-tale Better Than You Could Imagine

Hey, Friend!

Do you ever watch fairy-tale movies? The ones with a beautiful girl who is courageous and good and finally overcomes incredible odds and adversity and marries the prince/handsome rich guy?

I do. I like those kind of films. Happy endings are my jam.

What’s hard to do is come back to reality and try to reset my mind to cope with my very unmagical, daily grind involving dust, dirty diapers, lint, and bickering children who must be fed. Often.

“Happy endings are for fairy-tales,” the cynic in your mind may mutter. “Life is hard and then you die.” (This is an actual quote from one of my parents.)

But.

According to the Bible, I am told that no one can even imagine the wonderful things that are being prepared for us (1 Corinthians 2:9), that this world is merely a prelude to a New Heavens and Earth (Isaiah 65:17, Revelation 21:1), and that our King is actually preparing a grand (re)entrance into our world (Titus 2:13, Hebrews 9:28) – just like the crescendo of any fairy-tale ending.

The truth is: we ARE living in a sort of fairy-tale.

Our hope in this life is anchored in a tale of epic love, betrayal, loss, redemption, and (ultimately) victory. We have been promised that happy ending, and what’s important in the meantime is how we maintain our perspective and courage as we wait and hope for the return of our King and the righting of all that is wrong.

(I recommend reading the Jesus Storybook Bible, by Sally Lloyd Jones, for a comprehensive view of this better-than-fairy-tale story, if you haven’t already.)

As I explained to my children the other day after watching one such fairy-tale film together, it’s as if this present world is set at the end of the movie, immediately before the happy ending.

The curse is broken, the spell is lifted, the evil is defeated – but it’s in those few seconds where all the darkness and sadness still hold that we live for now.

We are in the space just before the turn of events, where the hope appears crushed and the grief feels crushing. Bewildered, aching, it breaks our hearts and feels so wrong.

We are in that slice of time where we don’t see the truth yet.

But that doesn’t make it less true.

If we can be patient and hopeful, knowing that in just a little bit, the sun will rise and the light will break out. The wrong will be set right, and all that was hopeless and grim will be transformed and renewed. We will experience the delight and sheer joy that comes from living this glorious happy ending:

Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the old heaven and the old earth had disappeared. And the sea was also gone. And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven like a bride beautifully dressed for her husband.
I heard a loud shout from the throne, saying, “Look, God’s home is now among his people! He will live with them, and they will be his people. God himself will be with them. He will wipe every tear from their eyes, and there will be no more death or sorrow or crying or pain. All these things are gone forever.”
And the one sitting on the throne said, “Look, I am making everything new!” And then he said to me, “Write this down, for what I tell you is trustworthy and true.”
(Revelation 21:1-5, NLT)

That hope is something worth holding on to, tight, no matter what the cynics may say or the darkness around may seem like.

And that, to me, is better than any fairy-tale ending I could ever imagine.