Finding Hope...

God is an interesting fellow...

Recently, I set out to do something I never really thought I could. This thing would have put me in a very different place than I'm at right now. A pretty good place, I thought, but a very different place.

Without going into tons of detail, it didn't work out so now I'm back at this place in my life that I've been kept in for a quite a while now. This place of uncertainty, doubt and feeling stagnant. 

I feel like I've been trapped in a bubble. Nay. A forcefield; the world around me keeps spinning along but I remain stationary. I can't effect anything or change anything and, anytime I try to move, I'm snapped right back. It's frustration, putting it lightly.

In my mind, I know this means that God is moving...actually, I don't know He's moving but I have to believe He's moving. I have to have hope that He is ordering steps in the direction He wants me to go. I have to trust that or else I will go insane. 

However, I am trying to prepare my heart for hurt because if things continue as they are, I will be hurt. A lot. I know there is a chance for things to turn out just fine but I don't see it. I can't see it. All I can do is wait and see what happens. And it's easy to say the Christian things but, let's be real, I'm kind of past the Christian things. The words that Christians say to other but really they're thinking something completely different. So I'm just going to say it how it is. (The PG version)

This sucks.

I know the Christian walk isn't rainbows and daisies but I'd like to at least frolic on a rolling hill or something every now and again. I mean come on.

While we're on the honesty train, I'm at a place in my life where I don't feel God. I feel like I'm in a white room with no doors or windows. Sterile, cold and clinical. When I pray, I feel like it's echoing in an empty hall or bouncing around the room. And the more desperate my prayers become, the less I feel like they're being heard. In my brain, I feel like there should be a formula but there isn't. I don't know what to do and it feels like God has put me on hold indefinitely.

Needless to say, it's really really hard to have faith in this time of my life. But I have to have faith. It goes back to the "I need to believe or I'm going to freak out" thing. No matter how bleak things are, I seem to still find that glimmer of hope. That little flame on the burner that refuses to go out. It's kind of my nature. 

I'm a Leo. I'm not a mystic but I know what things to take into my life and what to leave and I accept the fact that I am a Leo. A lion. Stubborn but fierce. Not to be trifled with and, when you think about it, with God I am more prone to be bold and a further threat. I will fight. Win or lose I will fight. 

If I lose, I will cry. I will be angry. I will say things I don't mean. I know this. But I will always get back up because that's just the way God made me. If I win, I will rejoice and then look for the next challenge because I get really bored really quickly. It's just the way it works. I know myself well enough to be able to admit that. 

I actually wrote this from my personal journal (edited for the internets of course) and figured it would encourage someone to find their hope. My hope is in God, I know that, but there are things that remind me of that hope. For me, it's looking at maps haha! It sounds silly but when I look at a map of the world, I see my future. I see everything I was meant to do, see and be. I see stories that are waiting to be written and chapters waiting for me to crack open and begin. I see a journey that I have yet to embark on and that moves me. It gives me that feeling in my stomach that usually happens on the ride up a roller coaster and gets me pumped. 

Maps hold a special place in my heart next to playing music. Even when I'm just in the pits, I can look at a map or play a song that will help me carry onward and upward. 

Just know that there is hope out there and it's just waiting for you to find it. :)

Till Next Time...