“Mom you have no idea how hard I’ve been praying that God would help me find a job, this is so unbelievable! “
Because of the job and its close proximity to our home we took my son in with some pretty firm boundaries and expectations.
“You have to stay clean, and we’ll give you two weeks to find an apartment or boarding house. We’ll get you to work, but you’ll have to pursue a ride once you move.”
Within days we found the perfect apartment, once again it was so evident that God was at work. The apartment would be three miles from us in one direction and three miles from his work in the other.
I had never been so filled with hope.
Hope: “ the feeling that what is wanted can be had or that events will turn out for the best”
It had been so long since I had such a sense of hope for my son. I was walking on a mountain top. Could it possibly be that finally he was turning a corner? Away from addiction, away from those connected to his addiction. On to a new life, one that the rest of us just consider normal. But for him, it was a new hope a new chance to move on.
Sunday came and he willing came to church with us, he was grinning from ear to ear as he went from person to person to tell of his new life. He too was full of hope.
Monday as I picked him up from work a sense came over me that something wasn’t right.
“My boss was kinda grumpy today, not sure what that was all about”
Then the text came from the boss… "no work tomorrow I’ll call you later for the plan for the rest of the week”
Something didn’t feel right, I kept trying to let it go, to shake it off and grab hold once again to the Hope I had found. But that knot in my stomach just kept growing. By Tuesday evening it was apparent to me that something had happened and what made it very clear was the state my son was in when I got home. It was obvious he was on something. My heart sank and that Mountain Top Hope sank just as deep as it had been high.
He had been fired, not for drugs, but because he couldn’t stop using his cell phone during the day. Texting, phone calls, he had been warned, he didn’t, couldn’t, wouldn’t heed the warning. I keep forgetting that he’s not just an addict its more than that, he has a mental illness.
So many times I’ve said to myself “if he can just stay clean he can have a life, he can move on”
But here I am faced once again with the other side of the equation. The side that promises to rob him of even more, even if he stays clean. My sense of hope plummeted to the point of despair. The tears just didn’t stop flowing. For two days I cried continuously.
Over and over in my heart I heard God say…
“If I bring you to it, I will bring you through it… Do you trust me?”
Do I trust you? Really, really. I trusted you, I thought it was you that gave him the job, that it was you that got him that apartment… it had to be you, there was no way it was him. What is happening? What God do I need to see in this, tell me now please because I don’t want to feel this badly again. This pain, these tears, how much more? My silent rantings before God took on a desperate frenzy. ( I think I understand a bit how Job must have felt)
And then it came, not right way. But in those wee hours of the morning when sleep just won’t come, or stay.
Don’t hope in a job to change him, put that hope in Me. I the Great I AM am the only one who can give true hope for real lasting change.
“Even youths grow tired and weary, and young men stumble and fall; but those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint” (Isaiah 40:30-31, NIV).
These words came to my mind as I cried out to my God for a renewed hope, a hope that is deep and steadfast, that nothing can knock it off its mountain. A Hope that is eternal not temporal.
"Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, and whose hope is the Lord. For he shall be like a tree planted by the waters, which spreads out its roots by the river, and will not fear when heat comes; but her leaf will be green, and will not be anxious in the year of drought, nor will cease from yielding fruit.” (Jeremiah 17:5)
This is the Hope I want to have, one with deep roots, that no matter what comes I have placed my hope in the one who can sustain me and my son no matter what comes. Loss of job, mental illness, addiction. There will always be hope IF I place my hope in God.
Today as I have written this a got a call from my son…
“
God my Hope is in you! I’m digging the roots down deep and holding on to Your HOPE!
