The Shoe or Hope

“Waiting for the other Shoe to fall” is an old saying. Its meaning: to wait for the inevitable next step or the final conclusion. That’s where I sit right now, waiting for the other shoe to fall.

My son, has been in recovery now for 30 days and doing well in a Halfway House.

But I wait…

For the phone to ring and hear him tell me;

he’s been kicked out,

or

he failed his drug test

or

he just can’t stand it anymore.

I’ve heard all three of these in the past. Each attempt at recovery as of late has ended in failure of one sort or another. And with each of those my hope seems to fade further in the past, out of reach. I’ve become afraid of hope and afraid to hope. It almost seems safer to settle in to the acceptance of his being an addict, for its there that I’ve learned how to detach from the emotion of my love for him. It’s there that I’ve stopped the enabling, and it’s there that I gained a peace in my home that has lulled me to a place of contentment.

Gaining these things has been huge, and yet here I hang between the shoe and hope. In order to grasp a hold of Hope I need to accept that the shoe may fall. And if/when it does I don’t have to live in the despair of his failure. That’s where I’m stuck right now, thinking that hope is futile and that his failure is inevitable. I’m afraid to grasp a hold of Hope, the last time I did I fell so hard when he did. My despair was dark and deep and it took all I had to take hold of the Hand of the Almighty and let Him pull me from that pit.

Yet I want to rejoice in his recovery, 30 days is such an accomplishment from where he has been. So how can I let go of the worry of the shoe falling and remain hopeful?

Oh God help me hold onto the Hope I can have in you. Hope in another person is what is futile, but the Hope that I find in You will and can be what will never fail. Placing my hope in the One who holds the future, who holds my son’s future, who even knows when the shoe will fall, that is the Hope that will not let me go.

So let the Shoe fall where it may…

Romans 15:13 (Holman Christian Standard Bible)
13 Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit