Each of us fight battles as we live, day-by-day, in this broken world. If we keep our eyes on the battle we are sure to grow weary. When we recognize the sparks of hope around us, we find rest in the midst of our battle.
Sparks of hope are vital in the fight for hope because they awaken a quiet, fierce strength inside of us.
Sparks of hope remind us that we are warriors. Hope Warriors.
Sparks of hope stir our courage and remind us that hope is worth fighting for. Feeling courage reminds us that we are not meant to live life numb.
Sparks of hope are a reminder in the midst of our battle that there is a bigger story. And that our part of the bigger story is worth telling.
Sparks of hope sharpen our focus and our determination that the free fall will not define us and the darkness will not win.
The sparks of hope that give me courage usually involve words, beauty, and music.
A beautiful sunset reminds me of God’s faithfulness and His promise to never leave me.
A Bible verse on the drive through window of a coffee shop reminds my heart to hang on to hope.
A line in a movie may speak to me in a way the screenwriter never could have known.
The lyrics and music of a song reminds me that I am not alone. (This song also makes me dance.)
Sparks of hope remind us who we are and what we are fighting for.
What sparks of hope have you seen lately? I’d love to hear about it.
As I’ve put thoughts to paper and shoes on the idea of fighting for hope, I’ve described Hope Warriors in this way:
“Hope warriors are people who know their own brokenness, who aren’t afraid of the brokenness they see in others. They are people who say ‘I am with you. You are not alone.’”
What in the world is brokenness and what does it have to do with being a warrior? Warriors are brave and fierce and broken things should be fixed.
Right?
When things are broken, yes. Bring on the duct tape and the superglue. But when people are broken, it is a different matter altogether.
Brokenness is messy and scary…. and beautiful. It takes courage and ferocity and tenacity to deal with our own brokenness. Brokenness is something I couldn’t describe until I saw it lived out in the lives of Hope Warriors around me. And I wanted what they had.
To me, brokenness is seeing ourselves for who we truly are and accepting our story for what it is. It is looking at all the things, the ingredients, that make up our life – things that happened to us, things that we did to others, all the success, failures, and regrets. It is looking at ourselves honestly.
And that takes courage.
To know our own brokenness means that we stop running from ourselves and our story. It means that we look ourselves in the eye and see us for who and what we really are. None of us are as put together or confident as we would like people to think. On the flip side, we are also not as worthless as we’ve made ourselves believe.
Brokenness is bringing these two misconceptions into the light so that we can see ourselves for who we truly are, we can see our story for what it truly is, and begin to live. Once we stop running from our story, we can begin to write the next chapters of our story with purpose.
We don’t face our brokenness alone. Our brokenness is one reason God came to be with us in this world. Jesus was sent to “bind up the brokenhearted.” (Isaiah 61:1) He left the perfection of heaven to be near to us in our brokenness (Psalm 34:18), and to heal us (Psalm 147:3)
The Hebrew word for broken in these verses shabar, which means to break, crush, destroy.
So we could read it like this:
The Lord is near to those whose heart has been broken.
He was sent to heal those who hearts have been crushed.
He heals those whose hearts have been destroyed.
The word shabar also has the meaning “to bring to the birth.” I love this meaning because when our hearts are crushed, it gives room for the birth of something new. The birth of realizing our need for Christ, the birth of clear sight, the birth of a new direction for our life.
So, the crushing gives way to something beautiful.
The crushing itself is not pretty, or graceful or easy. But we don’t have to fear it. We can see it for what it is, and then let it give birth to something new in our lives. Because sometimes the hardest, most ugliest things end up being fertilizer for the most beautiful.
And as we grow more comfortable with our own brokenness, we can be gentle with the brokenness in others, and reach out to them saying “You are not alone in this.”
Brokenness is messy and scary, beautiful and brave…just like you.
When we are sitting in the darkness with our unanswered prayers, our unfulfilled dreams, and the ache of empty places in our heart it is easy to lose hope. It is easy to believe that things will never change. It is easy to believe that God doesn’t see, doesn’t hear, and doesn’t even care.
The truth is God does see. He does hear our prayers. He does care.
He gathers our tears in His bottle (Psalm 56:8), He is for us (Psalm 56:9), and He works in the broken places to answer the deepest cries of our heart.
I’m so excited to have Becky Spies as my guest today. Becky shares how God beautifully redeemed the broken and hurting places in her life in her post That Time I Got A Letter From God.
You can connect with Becky at her blog girl, redeemed at beckypricespies.com
Sometimes it is crossing our fingers and wishing for the best. Or it is what we feel as we move toward a goal step by step.
But that’s not the hope I picture when I say the words fighting for hope or when I call people Hope Warriors. The hope I picture is a quiet, fierce strength deep within. This hope is not fueled by good intentions, or determination, or the power of positive thinking. Instead, this hope is grounded in God’s nature and character.
We are drawn to hope, our hearts crave hope, because we were created by the God of hope. He made us for hope, He gave us the ability to hope, and He is the source of lasting hope.
And lasting hope is what we need when we push against the darkness in our lives. Lasting hope is bigger than we are, because it is grounded in God.
If God is the basis of lasting hope, we can experience this hope through knowing Him. We come face to face with Him in His Word. Through the pages of the Bible we read what He says about who He is and how much He wants to know us.
“Hope is the sense of expectancy and optimism that God wants to instill in all of us who love him and have faith in him. It’s an overriding confidence he gives, reminding us that, even in the midst of our greatest problems, God is still with us – and he is greater than any challenge we might face.” Lee Strobel, The Case for Hope
What is hope?
This type of hope is our anchor as the storms of life swirl around us, when there is no script, and we aren’t sure what to do. This hope whispers truth when our heart doubts God’s love. This hope reminds us of times when God provided for us. This hope is proof that we are not abandoned or thrown out, because God is with us always.
I was doing just fine until I read The Healing Path by Dan B. Allender.
Wait…that’s not true. At all.
I was running from my story, really. And this book said things that made me turn around, face my story and own it. In the midst of facing my story, this quote spilled across the pages:
Hope is by far one of the most dangerous commitments we make in life.
I’d never thought of hope as being dangerous.
I’m not really a fan of danger. I can’t even stand the suspense of hide and seek.
This video describes my reaction to danger.
Not brave, not courageous, just a total flip-out. You can ask my children. They love re-enacting times when I’ve completely lost it. It’s not enough to tell the story, they want others to fully experience it. They are true Southern storytellers.
But this quote makes me rethink my aversion to danger. This quote makes me feel a bit wild and unpredictable as I push against the darkness in my life and yell (or sometimes whisper) “You will not win!”
Why is fighting for hope important? Why would anyone step willingly into danger’s path?
Because we have worth.
Right now, as I write this and as you read this, these words are true: We have worth. You have worth. I have worth.
We are more than our abilities. We are more than our struggles. Our worth does not come from our looks or financial status. Our worth is not determined by a lack of looks or financial status, either.
We have worth because we were created by God, who calls us worthy, who breathes life into every soul, who calls us beloved and precious. We are not a random bunch of cells that happened to group together and form a person. We are loved tenderly by God, who also says that we are worth fighting for.
We are worth the fight.
Because we weren’t meant to live life numb.
During difficult times, my first response is to build a cocoon around my heart to keep from feeling the hurt. We all have ways to cope with the fact that life is messy, confusing, and unpredictable. We distract ourselves in video games, TV series, and books to keep from dealing with life. We over-do good things: stay too busy, eat and drink too much, or shop too much. We even turn to harmful things like drugs, porn, gambling, cutting, or purging to keep us preoccupied and numb. The list goes on and on and the end result is the same.
We are miserable because we weren’t made to live like this.
We were made to feel. We were made to fight for things that matter. We were made to live in this broken world, to walk through the difficult times without being hardened by them. It is through the battle that we develop perseverance, courage, and compassion.
We were made for hope.
Because no one else can fight in our shoes.
We live in a broken world with hopelessness crowding in at every turn. Our news feeds are filled with tragedy and sorrow. Despair is a normal response to what is going on around us, but I believe people are looking for a different response. When others see us facing the darkness in our lives and yelling (or even whispering) “You. Will. Not. Win.” they see that despair is not the only response.
I am convinced that God places us strategically in families, in friendships, in relationships, in communities. And these spaces need Hope Warriors. I look at my own marriage and our struggles, my kids and the things they face, and I know that God has placed me right here to fight for hope. The same is true for you, my friend.
Why fight for hope? Because the last chapter has not been written. As dark as things seem, God can and will work in the situations you and I are facing right now. And when we choose to fight for hope, we are participating in the bigger story He is writing in this day and time.
Fighting for hope is dangerous. It’s also contagious. Our lives, our stories – even the chapters we don’t like – impact those around us.
And the more I fight for hope, the more I suspect that there may be a badass deep down inside of me. One that doesn’t flip out at the first sign of danger, but one who owns her story with style.
I cry whenever my children perform in talent shows. I can’t help it. I am so proud of them. It takes courage to perform on stage and I want to encourage my children to be brave. This world needs brave people.
But when my son wanted to dance in a talent show, I wavered. After all, I know the gene pool he comes from and there aren’t many dance-y genes in there.
What will the other kids say? I thought. What if he gets laughed at?
He persisted, undaunted by my wavering, and he danced to Axel F (my ’80’s heart was proud) and the crowd clapped and cheered and laughed in the places where they were supposed to. He loved it, and he experienced the thrill of trying something new.
And I cried as he danced. I cried because I was proud, but I also cried because my fears almost kept him from having this experience.
In a recent talent show, a spunky 10-year-old girl played the drums ROCKED the house on the drums. She definitely had talent, but even more, she enjoyed every second of playing those drums. She didn’t perform, she radiated.
And I cried while she played. An ache swelled in my heart as questions filled my mind. When did I stop finding joy in the things I’m good at? When did I get so insecure, afraid to try new things, afraid what others would think?
I can trace this fear back to lies I’ve believed over the years. Lies like I’m not good enough, my efforts won’t make a difference, it’s better to keep things the way they are, that change isn’t worth the effort.
These are lies I believed for far too long.
I hate lies. I hate they way they paralyze us, they way they eat into our souls, they way they cripple and maim.
I hate the lies that curl around my daughter’s heart, trying to take root, whispering in her ear, You are a nobody. You are useless. You are helpless.
I hate the lies my husband hears, You are a failure. You will never change.
There is no end to the lies we hear. You don’t deserve good things, You don’t matter, What you think doesn’t matter, You can’t make a difference.
Lies are powerful and if left in the dark they will take root and grow stronger until we eventually accept them as truth.
So what can we do? If we focus on the lie, even to argue against it, it grows stronger. The way to fight the lies is to change the playing field and focus on truth. As truth seeps into our hearts, the lies lose their power over us.
The truth really can set us free.
For years three major lies controlled my life. These lies were just under the surface of my heart, influencing the way I viewed myself, the way I viewed God, and the way I believed God viewed me.
I found freedom as I listened to truth. As I began believing truth I found the freedom to begin living bravely, courageously, and honestly. Instead of being paralyzed by fear, my heart grew strong enough to begin fighting for hope. And in the midst of this journey I scribbled my thoughts on paper. These thoughts became a 31 day series called Truths That Make Life Beautiful, because that is exactly what they did.
These truths changed me. You are loved. You are not alone. You have purpose.
When we feel unloved, alone, or useless, life is dark and filled with struggle. When we believe lies, beauty is hard to find. But truth has a way of bringing fresh air as it chases away the darkness.
My family loves watching American Ninja Warrior. My ten year old, Maggie, is on a first name basis with her favorites. I love the determination, the skill, and the strength of the competitors.
But most of all, I love their stories.
Flip Rodriguez, a competitor from Miami, Florida shared a part of his story and revealed a strength far greater than required for the obstacle course. He took off his mask, literally and figuratively. He brought a secret out into the light. He told the world that he had been sexually abused from the ages of 9-15. In a few short minutes he shared an extremely difficult piece of his story and then reached out to others caught in the same situation.
Before the show aired, he wrote on Instagram, “My story will finally come out to the world. One of the hardest things/ nervous times of my life. To let everyone into my world and what I’ve been through. In hopes of helping others that are going through it. To show you that you’re not alone in it. Just cause you’re in a situation doesn’t mean you have to stay there.”
He pushed through the shame, and in doing so, he lessened the shame others may feel about speaking up.
Shame is a fungus. It flourishes in the dark, covering us with its lies. Shame separates us from God by convincing us that though God’s love is real, it isn’t meant for us. Shame works overtime to make sure we feel alone, and that we stay alone. Eventually it convinces us that we are alone.
Brene Brown defines shame as “the intensely painful feeling that we are unworthy of love and belonging. She says “Shame corrodes the very part of us that believes we are capable of change.”
And Flip Rodriguez stared shame in the eye when we wrote “Just because you are in a situation doesn’t mean you have to stay there.”
He is fighting for hope and, by opening up about his past, he is reaching his hand across the gap to help others step out of the darkness of abuse.
His words on America Ninja Warrior were powerful. He communicated truth: This is not your fault. You are not alone. He offered empathy and understanding. and shame cannot survive where empathy and compassion are offered. Brene Brown explains it this way:
“If you put shame in a Petri dish, it needs 3 ingredients to grow exponentially: secrecy, silence, judgement. If you put the same amount of shame in the petri dish and douse it with empathy, it can’t survive.”
It can’t survive. Empathy and understanding bring our shame out of the darkness and into the light – where hope can grow.
People are amazing. The way they fight for hope, even when things look and feel hopeless. I believe people do that because we are wired for hope. We were made for hope because we were created by the God of hope. This God of hope who takes the broken and messy and says to the darkness What you mean for evil, I will use for good. And that is the war cry of the Hope Warrior.
Hope warriors are not people who have it all together. They are not people who give surface answers to the messiness of life. Hope warriors are people who know their own brokenness, who aren’t afraid of the brokenness they see in others. They are people who say “I am with you. You are not alone.”
Whether or not he wins America Ninja Warrior competition, Flip Rodriquez is definitely a Hope Warrior.
Our world needs Hope Warriors. Our world needs people who cling to the beauty of redemption, because there is so much that is broken.
I recently had my first manicure-pedicure nail salon experience.
I climbed in the car, feeling pampered and refreshed. “I got to hear part of one lady’s story and we talked about God.” I told my husband. “I wonder if that is a typical nail salon experience.”
He started shaking his head before I finished my sentence. “Erin, nobody has experiences like yours.”
Stephen shakes his head at me. A lot. Even after being married to me for 23 years, there are many areas where he can’t figure out why I do the things I do. And talking to strangers is at the top of the list.
I talk to strangers. A lot. I tell my kids not to, but I am a total hypocrite when it comes to this.
Conversations with strangers are always, always interesting. One time I met a lady who told me about her former life hundreds of years ago. I live in the deep South, so I’d never met anyone who actually believed they were reincarnated. See? Interesting.
Now, there was that one conversation on the adult diaper aisle that was more interesting than I bargained for. I now avoid that aisle at all cost, and if I can’t, I definitely avoid making eye contact with anyone on that aisle.
I’ve made great friends by talking to strangers. I met my friend Kim at a writer’s group meeting over 20 years ago. She and I hit it off so well I took her home for supper and we’ve been friends ever since. She is one of the many Hope Warriors in my life.
I also once asked Maritza, who was a Kroger cashier at the time, to help me become more fluent in Spanish. She asked if I would help her children with English. Another friendship was born, along with some pretty humorous cross-cultural experiences. To this day Stephen does not trust me to translate anything in Spanish. Just because I might have tricked him into eating a cow tongue taco that one time.
We often underestimate the power of a smile or the timeliness of an encouraging word. I know their power because I have been blessed many times by the words of a total stranger. (Except for that diaper aisle convo.)
Days after my second miscarriage, the words of a stranger comforted me as I stood in the Walmart pharmacy. After 9 years of marriage, and years of waiting for a baby, I was absolutely heartbroken. This kind lady wasn’t afraid of the tears streaming down my face as she offered words of comfort and shared her own miscarriage experience with me. In those few moments she let me know I wasn’t alone.
A few years later my daughter had a seizure while we were shopping. A stranger prayed over her and stayed with me until the ambulance arrived.
One day at the eye doctor, one of the technicians began telling me about losing her father unexpectedly. Even as she spoke of her sorrow, her faith in God and in His care shone clearly. Within a few moments we were both praising God.
Then there was the lady in the grocery store who saw my numb, tired look as my kids ran in circles around my grocery cart. Anderson was holding a giant pack of toilet paper on his head pretending to be some kind of animal. She cautiously leaned toward me and said “It does get better.”
These interchanges happened in the middle of busy settings and some lasted only a few minutes. But they have been important over the course of my life. They happened because a stranger reached out of their world and entered mine for just a second to offer encouragement, comfort, or just plain kindness.
I have met so many hope warriors by talking to strangers. People who are fighting for hope, believing that things can change, and clinging to the God who holds them up. People who have encouraged me to trust God’s hand, who reminded me of God’s love toward me even when I’ve felt like I was sitting in the darkness.
Our hearts crave hope. We were made for hope because we were created by the God of hope. Sometimes we forget that, sometimes our hope wavers, and it takes the kindness of a stranger to remind us of the truth. And other times, we have the privilege of stretching out a hand to others to say “You are not alone. Hope is worth fighting for!”
Stephen was with me one day in Subway when a woman came up to me and said “You look like a person who prays. Will you pray for me? Everything in my life is going wrong.” She sat down with us for a few minutes. We listened to her story and offered her words of truth. I tried to remind her that her mistakes can be forgiven and that God’s grace offers each one of us another chance.
As she walked away, Stephen looked at me and, of course, shook his head. My sweet husband can keep shaking his head until all his hair turns grey. I’ll keep looking for Hope Warriors among us.
Have you ever been blessed by the words of a stranger? I’d love to hear about it!
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.
I love this picture of my dad. I love the joy on his face. He is a kid just enjoying being a kid.
I love seeing that joy on my children’s faces, too. I love it when they forget I’m around, and they are in their own world, just being kids.
I also love it when they snuggle on the couch with me in the mornings. Sometimes we just watch the sun rise, transforming the darkness outside our windows. Sometimes we talk about the dreams they had during the night. And sometimes they whisper big questions into those quiet moments, questions about life in this broken world.
I love the privilege of speaking truth into their lives. It gives me joy to be with them.
The longer I am a parent, the more parallels I see between children and being a child of God. Just as my children draw security and comfort from these early morning visits with me, I draw security and comfort from time in God’s Presence.
I have to admit that I haven’t always viewed time with God as being a joy-filled experience. There have been times in my life when being in His presence has been uncomfortable. There have been times when I’ve been nervous and prayed loud-and-fast-and-got-out-of-there-as-soon-as-I-could. I could still say I had time with the Lord, but I didn’t really spend time with him. I threw Him my list of needs and got out before He could say anything.
I was fulfilling a sense of duty, but it did not nourish my soul.
But God has a way of wiggling His truths into our hearts, even when our fingers are in our ears. He has a way of bringing us back to our senses when we stray off His path.
Why does He do this? Simply because He loves us. Because He wants us to experience the joy found through a relationship with Him.
You make known to me the path of life; in your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore. Psalm 16:11
The more I spend time with Him, the more I see this as a lifeline, and less as an item on my to-do list.
I wrote this poem years ago, as my view of time with God began to change:
As I sit at Your feet and lean upon Your knee, As I read Your Words to me,
A hunger fills my lonely heart. It is You I desire to see.
When I’m with You I catch a glimpse of what this world should be.
Haziness clears, what is important appears, And it is You I desire to see.
In Your Presence is peace and fullness of joy, Unlike any other place I can be.
As Your loved daughter, a child of the King, It is my Father I long to see.
As I sit at Your feet and lean upon Your knee, As I read Your Words to me,
A hunger fills my peaceful heart, And with you I long to be.
The search for joy brings us to the feet of the One who loves us beyond measure.
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