Hopeless no longer

I just finished tidying up the bathroom. Sweeping the floor, straightening the rug, straightening the decor that hangs above the toilet that’s always crooked because Ezra is always messing with it.

It’s a very strange thing – being in a “new” home but having seven years worth of memories to go along with it. Strange indeed.

One such memory involves this rug.

The rug stayed with the house because it matched my bathroom decor perfectly and my mother-in-law wasn’t using it.

It was a late Sunday night, last March. We had come into town having decided to settle here, but had no job prospects and no place to live. We had just a few days to figure it all out, and we were stressed.

Earlier that evening, my husband and I had stood in the back of our in-law’s church, my husband visibly distraught. He told me that he felt hopeless.

Hopeless…the exact word he used.

He was consumed with frustration and anger about his time in the Army and fear about our impending future with no job or a place to live.

He was fragile and broken and lost and it was heartbreaking for me to watch.

I was scared and angry too.

That night, I couldn’t sleep, so I crawled out of the guest bed and went into that bathroom floor and laid on the rug and cried and begged God for a miracle. I begged God to provide. I begged him to take the darkness out of my husband’s heart…this black hole of anger and fear.

I’ll be honest. I don’t pray a lot. I pray – but it’s so inconsistent I would hesitate to call it a “prayer life” – (whatever that’s supposed to mean anyway). I kind of just exist and know that God’s here all the time and He hears my thoughts and cares about me and loves me and I don’t need to go out of my way to tell Him what I need or ask Him for things. (Note: This may not be the most Biblical view of prayer, so don’t follow me as an example, just know this is where I’ve been for a while.)

I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve actually gotten down on my knees or my face and poured out my heart like this – in perhaps a good seven years. That’s just not the kind of person I am and not the kind of relationship I’ve have with God in recent years.

But that night, I did it in all sincerity…and it was a precious moment.

Now here we are, a year and a month later.

God provided a place for us to live, cramped as it might have been. He gave my husband a job, low paying and frustrating as it was and continues to be.

And then a year later, He gave us a bigger and better home. And while my husband’s job is unchanged, God has given us another source of income to help us through this difficult time. We now have money in savings and investments and debt paid off and I can go to Starbucks or buy some organic food without feeling mental anguish about it.

Come May 1st, I’ll even have health insurance.

I wish I could say that God answered the other stuff too…that the black hole within my husband is gone. But it’s not. I’ve spent the last year learning just how deep the hole is, how far-reaching the hurts, how wounded he really is. But I’m learning how to accept that too. I’ve found resources to help us heal together – and help both of us cope through the process. Our communication is horrible but we are learning how to fix it…slowly. We are having breakthroughs. We are finding support.

And, even though sometimes it’s harder to find, I have hope.

And now this hangs above the very spot where I prayed a prayer out of complete hopelessness.

Be encouraged today. There is always always hope.