We All Need Hope

I’ve dealt with debilitating migraine-type headaches for years. Any time I would lift more than ten pounds…it was inevitable. I couldn’t even carry groceries from my car to the house. Two or three times each week you could find me laying on the floor of my bedroom with heat packs on my eyes, neck and upper back. When I wasn’t there, I was in the shower with the power-massage setting of the shower head shooting water squarely between my eyes: something about the pounding of the water short-circuited my brain and while there…I felt no pain. 

I would go to the shower then back to the floor; to the shower; back to the floor…12-18 hours later, I’d feel alive again. After years of this, I was growing hopeless. Would I ever be without pain?

One day, I prayed in desperation: “Lord Jesus…I need some kind of breakthrough…Please!” The best way to explain what happened next was that I experienced a download: in an instant I had an understanding that I hadn’t before. I was doing the wrong thing. I needed to lift…MORE! This happened 15 seconds before I noticed a fitness club to my left. I immediately turned my vehicle into the parking lot, walked in the front door, and hired a trainer. That was the point my life of pain changed!

Hope is a gift. I asked for it and received it. I didn’t produce it—Jesus kindly intersected my desperation and gave me the gift of hope. He helped me see the solution that was not obvious—that was actually against my understanding and experience. Hope is found at the intersection of Exasperation and Revelation: it’s when the inobvious becomes obvious at the point of our absolute lack. Jesus brought me hope; He will bring hope to you.




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