Erin Ulerich

We Were Made For Hope

Here we are! Day 22 of Truths That Make Life Beautiful.

Your “likes” and your comments have encouraged me to keep plugging away at this series. (Thank you!) I’ve enjoyed walking with you through the first two truths: You are loved and You are not alone.

I believe that the more we allow these truths to soak into our bones and permeate our lives, the more readily we will believe the third truth: You have purpose.

You have purpose. You matter. You were made for wonderful things. Let’s explore a few of these wonderful things in the remaining days of this series.

We were made for hope.

The Hope We Were Made For And The Hope We Settle for.

I Will Praise You In This Storm

God is with us. We are not alone.

We Can Trust Him, Because of Who He Is

Life is hard to figure out.

In a session at a recent writing conference, Kaylan Adair, editor at Candlewick Press, spoke on middle grade novels.She defined them as stories where the characters stick their foot into the adult world for the first time. They are on an exploratory mission and don’t plan to stay. In these stories, the character discovers that life is complex and complicated.

There are days when I wish I lived in the chapter before the beginning of a middle grade novel – where life is easy to understand.

In reality, we live in the midst of layers of life, where things are happening simultaneously around us, to us, and by us, while we try to make sense of it all. We tend to default to a formula where our life experiences shape our definition of who God is and whether or not He loves us.

Good things happening=God is good and happy with us. Bad things happening= God is bad, weak, or mad at us.

This formula looks simple and easy to follow. But life can’t be lived through a formula. Life is complex and complicated, a mix of joy and sorrow at any given moment.

God is constant and unchanging, and life around us swirls in chaos.

Instead of letting our life experiences shape our definition of who God is and whether or not He loves us, what would it look like if we let who God is and His love for us shape our definition of our life experiences? It’s more than playing around with words. The difference between these two is the difference between hope and despair. I’ve experienced it in my own life.

When I was in 8th grade my grandfather died of a heart attack. I had a vague notion of who God was but I had no idea that He was with me or that He loved me. I felt alone and my grief was dark and hopeless. That same year a friend from school committed suicide. Again, I swam in dark and hopeless grief.

Years later my grandmother passed away after a horrendous struggle with cancer. At this point I had a closer relationship with God. I struggled with her suffering. I pleaded with God to take away her pain. I yelled at God and wrestled with the complex truth that He loved her and He was allowing her to suffer. But it was not dark and hopeless because who God is was my filter. My grandmother was his precious child. He loved her even more than I did. He was getting her heart and soul ready to spend eternity with Him and He would not let her suffer one second longer than necessary to accomplish that.

If I had interpreted who God is through this difficult circumstance, the logical conclusion would have been that God was either helpless or too cruel to alleviate her pain. However, the truth is that God’s greatest desire for my grandmother was for her to know Him and He loved her enough to do whatever was necessary to accomplish that purpose.

What made the difference in these two reactions?

Trust.

I filtered my sorrow, my anger, my frustration through the filter of who God is. I searched His Word to find out about His steadfast love, His faithfulness, His being with His people. And I clung to who He is as we walked through this battlefield of cancer.

The more I know Him, the more I trust His steady, constant Hand in the midst of the constantly changing circumstances swirling around me.

If your eyes are on the storm
You’ll wonder if I love you still
But if your eyes are on the cross
You’ll know I always have and I always will – Casting Crowns, Just Be Held

Picture by Angela Ewing — *Photo by Angela Ewing*

Even When We Feel Helpless, We Are Not Alone

We sat in the school hallway with 30 other people, waiting for the tornado.

I tried to keep conversation light to mask my own worry. Anderson played a board game nearby with a friend. Maggie watched Frozen with a group of girls huddled around a tablet screen. But Ellen stayed by my side and asked the hard questions.

“Is the tornado close?” she whispered. I put my arm around her as we leaned against the wall. “It’s about 10 minutes away. You don’t have to worry. We are in a safe place. We are in the safest place we can be. ”

“Will it hit us?” She asked.

“I don’t know, sweetie, but we are in a safe place if it does.”

“Mama, do people die in tornados?”

In the 25 zillion parenting books I’d read, not a single book had a chapter on Speaking Truth During Tornados. I was not going to lie to my child, and yet I didn’t want to multiply her fears.

“Sometimes that happens, sweetheart. But we are in the safest place we can be right now.” I kept using the word safe hoping it would make her feel safe.

The wind howled. The rain pelted. And my husband walked past us, a grim look on his face. Ellen and I watched as he wrapped an extension cord around the handles of the double doors at the end of the hallway – the doors that could fly open if a tornado hit.

I felt the muscles tighten in Ellen’s little body.

“Are we going to die?” she whispered, her voice trembling in my ear.

Fear. Pure fear.

These circumstances were totally out of my control, and my child knew it. She immediately felt alone and helpless, and I could identify with that.

It is not unusual to feel alone when we feel helpless.

God knows what it is like to live in this broken world. He knows that we will face circumstances that we can’t change or control. And He knows we need Him to remind us that we are not alone.

Do not fear, for I am with you. Isaiah 41:10

His Word gives us assurance of His presence. We are not alone, because He is with us.

I did not want my child to feel alone, because we were not alone or abandoned.

The truth was that the tornado could hit. We could be injured or die. And God would still be good. He would still use it in our lives for something beautiful.

But how could I explain this to my 6 year-old who was gripped with fear, when I don’t even fully understand it myself? I’ve seen God bring beauty from bad things in my life. I’ve seen Him work in people’s hearts through the most difficult and horrible circumstances. I don’t understand it, but I trust His hand.

I pulled Ellen into my lap, held her, and said, “I’m not sure what will happen. But I know that God will do what is best, and I trust Him.”

The tornado went over us without touching down and Ellen and I whispered prayers of thankfulness for His protection.

God did protect us that day. But even if He had allowed the tornado to hit, it wouldn’t have been because He took His Hand away from us. As His children, we are secure in the palm of His Hand. He is with us.

I’m still not sure how to convey this complicated truth to my children. Maybe it’s enough to teach them to trust Him, because He is with us, even when we are sitting in the dark.

We Don’t Face Life Alone

Because we are not alone, we don’t face life on our own. We don’t carry our burdens on our own. The song Shoulders, by For King and Country, describes this truth.

I lift up my eyes to the hills.From where does my help come?

My help comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth. Psalm 121:1

Even When We Feel Alone, We Are Not Alone

Flashpoint is a television series about a fictional elite tactical unit called the Strategic Response Unit (SRU). They are an emergency response team. In each episode, this team faces a threatening situation that requires them to swing into action. Often, when the negotiator of the group talks to the person creating the emergency, he tries to figure out what brought this person to this point of extreme action. And when he gets behind the reason for the extreme emotions, I’ve noticed that he says. “I get it. You aren’t alone.”

Through very intense, fictional situations, Flashpoint fleshes out this truth: When we feel alone, we make very bad decisions.

In my book, Angkura: The Fight for Hope, the main character is a 16 year-old who feels alone. And she makes a poor relationship choice because she doesn’t want to feel alone. But throughout the story, as she learns how deeply she is loved, and that she is not alone, she begins making choices motivated by courage instead of fear – the fear of being alone.

We all have a fear of being alone, of being misunderstood, of not being valued, of feeling disconnected.

And when we feel those things, we often make our own poor choices in order to avoid feeling those things. We may seek to numb the pain, or we grasp at any relationship that we think will help us not feel that way.

This is the basic, broken, human condition.

The beautiful, glorious truth is that we are not alone. We are of great value to the God who formed us, and we are only disconnected as long as we keep Him at a distance.

It isn’t surprising that the enemy of our souls works overtime to make sure we feel alone. We were created for fellowship with God and with other people, and that is where the enemy strikes.

It’s a very effective strategy. And we can only fight his strategy with truth.

Psalm 139:1-18 paints a beautiful picture of the way God knows us and cares for us, intimately, gently, completely.

O Lord, you have searched me and known me!
You know when I sit down and when I rise up;
    you discern my thoughts from afar.
You search out my path and my lying down
    and are acquainted with all my ways.
Even before a word is on my tongue,
    behold, O Lord, you know it altogether.
You hem me in, behind and before,
    and lay your hand upon me.
Such knowledge is too wonderful for me;
    it is high; I cannot attain it.

Where shall I go from your Spirit?
    Or where shall I flee from your presence?
If I ascend to heaven, you are there!
    If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there!
If I take the wings of the morning
    and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea,
even there your hand shall lead me,
    and your right hand shall hold me.
If I say, “Surely the darkness shall cover me,
    and the light about me be night,”
even the darkness is not dark to you;
    the night is bright as the day,
    for darkness is as light with you.

For you formed my inward parts;
    you knitted me together in my mother’s womb.
I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
Wonderful are your works;
    my soul knows it very well.
My frame was not hidden from you,
when I was being made in secret,
    intricately woven in the depths of the earth.
Your eyes saw my unformed substance;
in your book were written, every one of them,
    the days that were formed for me,
    when as yet there was none of them.

How precious to me are your thoughts, O God!
How vast is the sum of them!
If I would count them, they are more than the sand.
I awake, and I am still with you.

I get it. You are not alone. These words are such a comfort, and there is good reason for this. We weren’t meant to be alone. And we aren’t.

Have You Been Introduced?

The way we meet God seems backwards to me.

We are introduced to God through someone else. It’s amazing that God trusts this introduction to us, especially when we are so likely to misrepresent Him. It’s really an important introduction.

Our introduction to God is important because the way we view God and the way we think He views us are important. What we believe about these two questions influence our life: “How do I view God?” and “How does God view me?” Our answer to these questions determine our reaction to God’s words of “I am with you.”

I know people who are convinced God is out to get them. I know others who keep God at a distance because they are sure He looks at them with a disappointed frown. These people might say that God is good, loving, and forgiving, but their life shows what they deep-down, really believe. They don’t draw comfort from God’s words of “I am with you” because they don’t believe that God is for them.

I don’t remember my very first introduction to God. I remember the Gideons coming to our school and handing out New Testaments, I remember going to church with my grandmothers when I was younger, and I remember Sunday School at their churches. I remember going to retreats and lock-ins with my friends at their churches. My mother took us to church when I was in middle school, which was the first taste I had of being part of a community. I have no doubt that the seed of faith was planted and watered in the midst of all of these memories. And I am sure that these experiences played a part in me seeking out a relationship with God when I was in the ninth grade.

But the most in-depth, real-life conversations I had about God was with my tennis partner, Nona. I was a new believer, hungry to know God, and Nona spent time talking with me, answering my questions, and pointing me back to Him. (Just in case you don’t remember high school, there are LOTS of things happening that can make you question God’s presence, His care, His involvement in our every-day circumstances. AP Biology is only one of those things.)

We talked after tennis practice, often until dark, and the sunsets over the cotton and soybean fields were spectacular. I realize that the sun sets every night, but it felt like God painted sunsets with especially vibrant colors on the nights we sat on the tennis courts talking about Him. It felt like He painted them just for us.

I am so thankful for the way I was introduced to God. Since then, there have been other people in my life who have presented God’s holiness in a way that communicated Him as stern and distant. They focused on our sinfulness and unworthiness without mentioning the abundance of His lavish love or the bridge of His amazing, life-giving grace. I realize now that this slant probably had more to do with their view of God and their life-story, but it made an impact on me as a new believer.

God gives us the great privilege of introducing others to Him. The best introduction points them to His Word, because that is the place where who God is can be clearly seen. He is holy, and we are sinful. That is true. He is also relentless in His love for us and in His mercy toward us. His Word is more than a book. It is God’s words of this is who I am, this is how much I love you, and this is what I’ve made you for.

We find life in the pages of His Word because we find Him.

I am Not Alone

The truth that we are not alone gives us comfort and courage in the circumstances of our lives. This song so beautifully reminds me of this truth.

God is With Us

God’s desire from the beginning has been fellowship. To be with us.

In the very beginning, God walked in the garden with Adam and Eve. When sin entered the world, that relationship was broken, but God’s desire did not change. Throughout the Old Testament, His heart cry is repeated: “They shall be my people, and I will be their God.”

And then He opened the folds of time and stepped into our world, as one of us. Jesus, Immanuel, which means God with us.

With us. Not watching from a distance. Not a kind, but powerless, force hovering around us. But walking among us, experiencing life in this broken world.

Through Jesus, God knows the pull of this world on our hearts. He knows what betrayal feels like. He knows what it is like to watch people you love make wrong choices and walk down destructive paths. His feet grew dusty, His heart weary. He felt the limitations of our human body.

Jesus lived the life we cannot live, perfectly obeying God’s law. Through His life, death on the cross, and resurrection, He calls us back into relationship with Him – the relationship we were originally made for.

When there was no way, God made a way. Immanuel, God with us.

And Jesus’ parting words were, “I am with you always..”

Then He sent His Spirit to be with us, His power inside us. Today, right now, He is with us. His relentless, loving devotion to His people has not changed.

We were not made to be alone, and He has not left us alone.

Linger in the beauty of this truth. Savor the sweetness. God is with us.

A Pearl of Great Price

I have enjoyed exploring the first truth in this Truth That Makes Life Beautiful series: You are loved.

I am so excited to be moving into the next truth that makes life beautiful: You are not alone. This truth is close to my heart, because I felt alone, and truly believed I was alone, for many years.

As I said in the introduction to this series We say what we think. We live what we believe. And I believed that I was alone. It was a belief born out of a lie that formed a chain around my heart, link by link, over the years.

I had a great childhood, surrounded by family and friends who loved me.

But I also had a belief deep down in the core of my being that I was alone. And there were situations, circumstances, that seemed to prove the truth of that belief. We live in a broken world, surrounded by broken people, and in my own broken state, I misinterpreted many things.

I wore my aloneness as an accessory. I picture it as a pearl necklace. (Y’all know we wear pearls with anything here in the south.) And each time something happened that seemed to prove the truth of my false belief, I added one more pearl to the strand.

I wasn’t aware of this strand of pearls until a few years ago when I noticed that I was reacting really strongly to situations. I was reacting as if I was abandoned. One night my husband looked at me and said, “You know I’m for you, right?” I didn’t know that. Why would I not know that?

So I went back to the beginning and looked at events that happened over the years: growing up, those crazy turbulent teen years, the early years in our marriage, and I named each pearl in my necklace. Those pearls added up to one thing. I was alone. I was alone and there was no one to protect me.

I believed the lie that because I felt alone, I must be alone, abandoned, worthless.

I began looking for truth to replace this lie. And as I searched God’s Word, I traded in that string of pearls for a pearl of great price: what God says about me (and you) in His Word.

God says we are not alone. He says it over and over in His Word. And He shows it in many different ways in our lives.

We are not alone. And that truth makes life beautiful.