Shackle-free and fulfilled?

I am convinced that the loss of hope is the worst feeling in the universe.

I’m not saying that I have hit that rock-bottom hopelessness, but I feel like I’m tripping at every turn these days. I keep pulling myself back up, and giving myself a pep talk, and convincing myself that tomorrow is going to be better, that something’s gotta give, and then the next day, I wind up in the exact same loss-of-hope spot.

Will things ever change? Am I ever going to feel fulfilled?

During the Easter services yesterday, I sang the triumphant words that I have sung hundreds of times before: “As he stands in victory, sin’s curse has lost its grip on me.” That is a truth that is ready to be claimed – and yet I rarely live into that actuality. I don’t know how. Sin has no grip on me, and yet I can’t walk away from it. I don’t know how to let go of the expectations that I have placed on myself, I don’t know how to accept grace, and I definitely don’t know how to trust God.

It’s been this way for years. And truthfully, at this point, it feels like some things are never going to change.

My friend George keeps telling me that there are good things, big things, in store for me in the coming months. I need to hear these words. So he says them – sometimes I believe him, and sometimes I think he’s smoking crack.

I read something tonight that really hit a deep, dark place in me. In Plan B: Further Thoughts On Faith, Anne Lamott writes, “When God is going to do something wonderful, He always starts with a hardship; when God is going to do something amazing, He starts with an impossibility.” Not to canonize Anne Lamott as being the Gospel, but I do think that her words hold a huge deal of truth. God shows his strength through our weakness – and when we view something as being impossible, what better time for him to prove us wrong?

I’ll keep you posted.