Hope for the Hopeless

A song keeps playing in my mind over the past week or two (the words and music are by Don Moen). It's a song I've known for years, but never really took to heart. It started when I was praying for a friend who's going through a rough time. I kept praying for her intermittently for the better part of the morning, and each time I did, the song popped in my head again. (When I wasn't praying for her the song I heard was Pink's "So What" - not Christian in the least, but I heard it on the radio as I was flipping stations, and it stayed with me all day.) Since it (the nice song) kept popping into my head every time I started praying for her again, I figured it was meant for her. So I emailed her the lyrics.

But since then, the same song keeps coming to mind when I'm praying for other friends too. At first I thought it was just because I was associating it with hurting friends. I no longer think so. We all have pain in our lives - either currently, or previously, or in the near future. As Christians we can cling to the promise "...that IN all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose" (Romans 8:28). Even our insufficiency, our brokenness, our pain, our mistakes (even the BIG ones) - God will somehow use for GOOD in our life. But this is only a promise for those who who are trying to follow His will (or who had been once, and then truly become repentant).

I've had some rough days (emotionally) over the past year. When I was first hospitalized last February, I was relieved that someone was going to find out what was wrong with me and be able to fix it. But when the doctor came in and told me that he didn't think I'd live to see my son born (I was 33 weeks pregnant), my world came crashing down around me. But God brought me through. There is no earthly fix for what I have - except an eventual double lung transplant, and I'd only have a 35% chance of still being alive 5 years after the transplant. But just before that doctor "told me like it is," God, in His generosity and love verbally spoke to me and told me that "it will be okay. This will end." Since then He's confirmed over and over again that it WAS His voice I heard. I don't know how long I will be struggling with this terminal illness before he chooses to miraculously heal me, or what hard times I'll have to go through in the meantime. Nevertheless, I clung to those words through through the weeks of agony in the hospital - during the times when I literally was fighting for each and every breath - and during the months since while I'm struggling to regain a "normal" life - for me and for my family.

In Isaiah 46:4, it says "... I am He who will sustain you. I have made you and I will carry you...." How reassuring to know that St. Augustine's "Ultimate Being," the Creator of the entire universe wants to and will sustain ME. He will CARRY me when I don't have the strength to take one more step, or even to stand. It is when I fall to my knees (in prayer, humbleness, submission, exhaustion, etc.) that He will gently pick me up. It doesn't say He will "hold me," it says "carry me" - He won't let me stay where I am, in my "dark place" (as a hurting friend recently so eloquently phrased it). He will move me to a place of safety, a place of comfort, a place of growth and even love and forgiveness.

God will make a way
Where there seems to be no way
He works in ways we cannot see
He will make a way for me
He will be my guide
Hold me closely to His side
With love and strength for each new day
He will make a way He will make a way

By a roadway in the wilderness
He'll lead me
And rivers in the desert will I see
Heaven and earth will fade
But His word will still remain
He will do something new today

God will make a way
Where there seems to be no way
He works in ways we cannot see
He will make a way for me
He will be my guide
Hold me closely to His side
With love and strength for each new day
He will make a way He will make a way