"Hope Is Not Lost"
24"x36" Oil on Canvas
Sometimes we give up hope because it all just looks too chaotic and dark. It seems nothing we do will help or even come close to getting us through to peace. We feel lost in the darkness. Is God the father of light? If so, light can be found... which means, there is hope even if you don't know it is there.
Don't give up. Not to be confused with "stay in a bad situation and pray for 25 years that it gets better" Don't give up on hope! Hope for better, hope for peace, hope for calm. This means action. Whether it is mind, body, spirit or all of those things...take action. Hope is not stagnant.
I have my own experience of finding hope and it took a lot of action. Let me take a hard turn on this: If you grew up in the evangelical world like me, you might be misinformed about some things taken out of context in the Bible. Here it goes...not all marriages are sacred in the eyes of God. Not all marriages should be saved at all cost. "God can do anything" shouldn't be a reason to stay in something harmful. Don't hold the "marriage" sacred even though it is actually causing harm. God is love. If marriage has anything to do with God and love, then it will produce fruit... not darkness and despair. God gave us free will, right? So, sometimes what one person choses isn't up to God. Sure, people and situations can change... and I think it is good to thank God for that... but sometimes situations don't change, or they continue to get worse... that is when you accept that even though "God can do anything"..."anything" is refusing to change. Sometimes to get to peace, you have to disrupt the entire thing and make a huge mess. This is especially true if you are in a situation that is hard to get out of.
"If you stay silent about the problem to keep the peace, there is a zero percent chance that the problem gets fixed." Kalen Dion. Along those same lines... if you don't hold someone accountable for their actions, they likely won't change. If you die to self and put all their responsibilities on yourself, you might die all together. Pretty sure that is not God's ideal plan for your life.
We have all heard "actions speak louder than words"... sometimes words are so loud that you get caught up in them... you think you must be crazy because all the words are there. All the right words... or at least they sound like all the right words. I had the privilege of learning those words are manipulation. Sometimes the manipulator is so convincing it takes decades to see the truth. That is because a manipulator is a chaos coordinator. They make things as unclear as possible and keep you off balance. They will do anything to make you think they are good between evil.
"I didn't become selfish, I became harder to manipulate." -misinformation
You are human. Humans come with responsibilities and if you have an intimate connection with another human, they should have a responsibility to treat you carefully. That shouldn't be a difficult thing. If it is a good relationship, healthy treatment comes naturally and usually the two people actually desire those responsibilities out of love. If it is very difficult and not happening, then it is missing real love. This type of relational responsibility is similar to loving our kids. I naturally desire to love and nurture my kids. I care deeply about their hearts, minds and souls. I desire to love them how they need. I also know that as a parent, I would always do whatever I could to help them. If I don't take the responsibilities for them, if I don't care about how they are doing, if I don't help with the day-to-day life things, if I refused to help them financially, but just do something fun on occasion with them... then I don't deserve all the privileges of them. If your partner is only there for the things they want from you or just the benefits of you... but not there for the hard stuff or any of the responsibilities of you, that is not love. If they harm you, control you, abuse you, but then love bomb you... that is not love, it is evil. Love comes from God. Evil is not from God. Evil is from free will. God doesn't change free will. God doesn't desire evil for us. Make the connection.
Patrick Weaver says very bluntly: "We have to learn to trust people when their behavior tells us they don't love us or when they stop choosing to honor the responsibilities that come with the privileges of us. Does someone love us who harms us? Hell No. Regardless of what they say, no matter how good it was in the beginning, no matter how we feel and no matter how hard they chased us, love bombed us, pretended, or faked it, the answer is still hell no. They don't love you because they "chase" you. Chasing you is a game, it's not love. Chasing you doesn't mean somebody loves you, it can also mean they want to conquer you. After God freed the children of Israel, Pharaoh chased after them... not because he loved them, but because he couldn't stand the thought of them being free from his bondage." In my own thoughts: Pharaoh was only concerned about what the slaves did for him, he wasn't ever concerned for them.
Remember to trust behavior not words. "Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth." (1 Corinthians 13:6)
"The highest form of intimacy is truth." - Lorin Krenn
"There are not always two sides to every story... sometimes one side is what actually happened, and the other side is a complete lie." - The Narc Hunter
I learned all about living in the truth and facing the truth and owning the truth these past couple of years. After the ugly chaos, it is freeing. I also learned that during this process it is a lot easier to see the truth in other people and situations. When you clear all the BS out of your own life, it's easier to spot BS outside your life.
"People who are NOT susceptible to narcissistic abuse tend to have one thing in common: The ability to see when someone is full of BS." -The Narc Hunter
Now, back to Hope. Faith, hope and love... good things. Start spending your life working towards those things. Stop thinking you are responsible for somebody else doing evil to you. That is not your responsibility. Your responsibility is seeing the truth, working toward peace, working toward healing, working on finding out who you are created to be when you are not being torn apart. HOPE for goodness in your life. Hope for love. Have faith that GOD is love. Love is good. Surround yourself with good, not evil. I'm still doing the work. The action part of Hope. I'm hoping to be completely free in my mind of the evil that once held me. There is no room for evil in Love.
Dear God - please restore the years the locusts have taken. Please make good come from the bad situtation. Please show us the light and give us hope in goodness. Amen
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