The Power of Hope

This framed photo is one of my favorite things.  This is due only in part to the fact that I look half decent in it. The older I get the more I grimace at photos of myself.

In this one, I don’t look too shabby. Tim’s pretty hot, himself.  This picture was taken a few years ago, but we like to pretend we haven’t changed much.

Vanity aside, it’s dear to me for a bigger reason:  We look HAPPY.

And the four-letter word gracing the frame serves as a reminder of how we got there.

There were times when we weren’t so happy.  In fact, there were times that we couldn’t even remember what happy looked like or felt like. There were times we thought we’d never be happy again. EVER.

We were on the brink of divorce more often and for longer than I care to admit.

We tried counseling.

We tried it again.

And again.

We tried being nicer, serving each other better, romantic gestures, talking things to death, “fake it til ya make it,” and the list goes on.

He tried not being a cold-hearted jerk and I tried not being an emotional shrew.

Nothing worked. Not for long, anyway.

On the surface that list looked (and felt) more like being polite through gritted teeth, mutually going through the motions of domestic service, forced romance, fighting, and pretending we enjoyed all the so-called efforts we were making to obtain marital bliss.

No one was buying it.

We were ready to give up again and again. (And again and again.)

After what seemed like a lifetime of failure, we found victory in a surprising form. We didn’t find all the answers to our problems. We didn’t find a magic wand or a magic eraser to wipe out our past and present hurts.

We found hope. Actually, we didn’t find it.  It was handed to us.

I know what you’re thinking: Hope can’t fix anything.

You’re right, too. In and of itself, hope can’t fix anything.  But without hope, you can’t fix much.

Part of the motions we went through so many years ago involved going to weekly Life Group meetings. Our married Life Group leaders were a bit younger than us, but they had a solid marriage and solid relationships with God. They reached out to help us in our marriage.

In our first meeting with them, we talked about many things I don’t remember now. What I do remember is the one tool they gave us that changed our lives.

In their wisdom they knew that nothing we did to save our marriage was going to work if we didn’t have hope. It was clear that our hope was gone. Finished. Kaput.

Tim wanted out. He wanted it bad. I was more stubborn. I was determined to make him stay work things out, but I had lost hope, too. Even if we stayed married, I had lost hope that we’d ever be happily married.

Our Life Group leaders gave us only one assignment.

They didn’t tell us to love each other more. They didn’t tell us to forgive. They didn’t tell us to work through any issues and didn’t ask about our childhoods. They didn’t tell us to go on dates or buy each other gifts.

They gave us a scripture. A scripture of hope:

Our instructions were to say this scripture to each other at least once a day. We were to pray it for ourselves individually, for each other and for our marriage.  We were to do any or all of these any time we felt like giving up.

I have to admit we thought it was ridiculous.  In our minds, our marriage was so far gone that saying some flowery scripture to each other wasn’t going to do anything but add stress and make us feel awkward.

Before we even left our leaders’ house,  I lost what thread of hope was left. I just knew Tim wouldn’t even try it. I braced myself for Tim to finally turn the door knob that his hand had been on for so long and walk out the door for good.

I couldn’t have been more wrong. I was wrong about Tim, and we were both wrong about the scripture.

People, it WORKED.

Not immediately, but it worked.

There is no explanation for it, except that we were speaking God’s word to each other, for each other, and about each other. We prayed God’s very own words to Him for our marriage.

That’s some mind-blowing power, right there.

Speaking these words of promise literally infused hope into our lives and transformed us. We not only found hope like never before to renew our relationship, but we learned first-hand about the power of speaking and praying God’s word.

Hope didn’t fix the problems, and there was still a lot of work to be done. Hope was not a magic wand or an instant fix.

But it DID change our lives. For the better, and for good.

Without hope, we were powerless to fix the problems. Without hope, we were powerless to do the work. Hope gave us the will and the strength to believe.  Hope gave us a way to start again by renewing our faith in each other, in our love, and in our God.

Who can have any faith at all without first having hope?

To be honest, we’d lost faith in God, too.  We had cried out to Him so many times to help us and we still couldn’t get it right.

The “hope exercise” (as I like to call it) renewed our faith in God right along with our faith in each other.  We haven’t had to say this scripture to each other in a long time, but all these years later I am still amazed at the power that speaking God’s word had in our lives.

And I am humbled.  After all the fruitless (and exhausting) efforts we made in the flesh to save our marriage, just the sprinkling of God’s words with only a mustard seed of faith changed our lives.

Now I can honestly say, “I am my beloved’s and he is mine.”

Is there anything you’ve lost hope in?  If you have, this scripture is for you.  Speak it; pray it; believe it.

I’ll even pray this for you. Let me know in the comments or email me if you want to remain private.

For all of you: May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.

{hugs}