Hope for Your Heart: Finding Strength in Life's Storms (3 page)

Sandra was starting to drown in hopelessness. What she needed was the ultimate life preserver . . .
hope
. . . to assure her that God’s help and healing were within her reach.

“I can’t handle these flashbacks,” she said with a resigned sense of defeat.

“Yes, you can,” I countered. “You
can
get through this difficult time. I want you to claim the Bible promise, ‘I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.’”
¹

“It won’t work for me,” she insisted.

“Do you believe the Bible is true?” I asked, knowing her answer would be yes.

“Do you believe the Bible is the Word of God?”

“Yes.”

“Do you believe God would lie to you?”

“No.”

Then I explained, “Whenever you feel like giving up, I want you to claim Philippians 4:13 (nkjv), ‘I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.’ Christ will empower you to do it. Christ, who lives in you, will be the power source for you. It won’t be easy, but you have the power of God within you. He is your Redeemer, and He can redeem your past—as painful as it is and as impossible as that may seem right now.”

She looked away. “That will work for you, June, but not for me. I’m just not good enough.”

“Oh, Sandra, it’s not about being good enough or strong enough or anything else enough!” I responded. “It’s about receiving God’s compassion, hope, and healing. His
hope
for your heart is based on His
promises
for your life. His
hope
for your future is based on His
plan
for your future. The Lord Himself says in Jeremiah 29:11, ‘I know the plans I have for you . . . plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.’”

I was painfully aware that my pleas, along with God’s promises, had fallen on deaf ears. It was as though Sandra had shut off emotionally, and she was spiraling downward. She saw no future. Instead she was a prisoner of her past.

I met frequently with Sandra over the next few months, but she seemed to be sinking down into the darkest sea. All of my attempts to pull her up and out were in vain, and outside counseling wasn’t proving to be helpful.

She cut herself off from nearly all of her friends and stopped attending our Bible study. Gradually she started drowning. She began drinking heavily, no doubt to numb her emotional pain. Disappearing for long stretches, she finally reemerged . . . but engulfed in a continual flow of sadness. Sandra was totally submerged in her painful past, the ultimate life preserver—hope—seemingly a thousand miles from her grasp.

Then one day I received a telephone call from the hospital where she worked. Sandra was in the hospital . . .
as a patient
. She had attempted suicide.

When I first arrived at the hospital, she said, “It’s bizarre to be in the place where I’ve come to work a thousand times . . . and now here I am in the psych ward!”

We talked candidly about her attempt . . . about her pain . . . about her past. And as I left, I thought,
Fortunately she’s in a safe place . . . they’ll
get her back on track
. I felt confident she would move toward wholeness.

But after several months Sandra’s story took an unexpected turn. Her insurance ran out. She would be moved to the state hospital, thirty miles outside Dallas.

The very next day after her transfer, my telephone rang. “June, you have to get me out of here!”

“What’s happened? Is something the matter?” I never will forget her exact words.

“June, I’m not like these people. They are walking zombies. I am not a zombie! I don’t belong here! You have to get me out of here!”

“Sandra, I . . . I . . . I don’t have the authority to do that,” I stammered.

“Oh yes you do! Just come and get me.”

“I don’t think I can. I wouldn’t even know what to do.”

“June, drive here, come to the front, and we’ll walk out together. They can’t hold me against my will!”

Later Sandra called again, “June . . . you have to get me out of here. You have to come and get me!”

“Sandra, I don’t know that it’s right for me to do that.”

“June,” she said next, “I’ve been thinking about what you’ve said
.
” I could hardly believe what rolled off her tongue then.

“I remember when you quoted the verse, ‘I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.’” (What a surprise to hear her quote Scripture!) “Well, I know that’s true. And I do realize that the Lord really does have plans for me. He has hope and a future for me.”(I was astounded to hear her saying the actual words from Jeremiah 29:11.)

“And I’ve been thinking, God promises to give me peace that passes all understanding.” (She was quoting Philippians 4:7. I could hardly believe my ears!)

“June, I’ve been thinking about what God says . . . that God loves me and that He’ll never leave me or forsake me. . . . I am a child of God.”

She was quoting Deuteronomy and the Gospel of John! She was repeating back everything I’d been saying. All along I thought my words weren’t even going in her ears, much less penetrating her heart.

“You know, I’ve been thinking, I need to trust in the Lord with all my heart. I shouldn’t rely on my own understanding. He promises to direct my path.” (Amazing! That was Proverbs 3:5–6. Yes, that was exactly what she needed to do!)

To be absolutely candid, I didn’t think the answer to Sandra’s problems would be found in a mental institution or through more drugs. I learned she was not getting the kind of in-depth counseling she needed to process her pain and give her hope for her distraught heart.

After much prayer, I made my decision. It was Friday afternoon, and our group was having a two-day Bible study/fun/fellowship retreat. So I drove to the state hospital and picked up Sandra as she had asked. We went to the retreat, and I had absolute peace that this was right.

The retreat was a rich time of spiritual feeding and fellowship for Sandra and for our entire group. Then on Monday morning we both met with a renowned Christian psychiatrist, who immediately took her off several medications, believing she was overmedicated. In addition to setting her up with a Christian counselor to help process her pain, a friend from our Bible study, a caring doctor’s wife, came alongside to consistently encourage Sandra.

Consequently she felt less and less hopeless . . . and more and more hopeful in her heart. The ultimate life preserver securely encircled Sandra, holding her up in this darkest and roughest of seas.

Think seriously about this question: When someone is in the depths of depression and is struggling with the will to live, what does that struggler need most? What is the single most important “ingredient” for you to give? If you had to give an answer, what would you say?

Genuine concern? Empathy? Compassion?

Total acceptance? Unconditional love?

My personal thought would be
truth
. And the reason should be obvious. Jesus says, “The truth will set you free.”
²

I had been speaking the truth
to
Sandra . . . she even had the truth
in
her . . . but she was not free. This mystified me. What was the problem? What did she not have?

Hope!
She didn’t have
hope
. . . she didn’t have
hope for her heart
. You can have all the truth in your head, but it must also be in your heart through hope.

Sandra knew a lot of
truth
, but didn’t have
hope
that the truth would work for her. Truth alone does not set you free. Many people have acquired
information
, but they need
transformation
. Why?

Sandra needed to not only
know
the truth of God’s promise for her . . . she also needed to have
hope
that those promises were for her. And that hope saved her life!

One fall day in 1985 my friend Jan and I decided to start a new Christian radio ministry . . . and we needed the perfect name. We knew we would be discussing relevant topics with real solutions.

I remember thinking about the word
Kaleidoscope
(for the variety of topics we would cover) and
Point-Counterpoint
(because of our two viewpoints).

Suddenly Sandra came to mind . . . Sandra whose life was almost snuffed out simply because she had no hope. Then I thought about the thousands of Sandras . . . men, women, teens, and children . . . who need hope! We decided to name the ministry after what we knew everyone needed:
Hope For The Heart
.

The signature Scripture for our ministry is taken from the promise spoken by the Lord Himself: “I know the plans I have for you . . . plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future” (Jer. 29:11).

Do you realize what those words spoken by the Lord mean for your life? You have been given a guaranteed hope because it is not based on you. You have a guaranteed hope that is:

• planned by God,
  
• prosperous for your life,
  
• promised for your future.
  

This is His plan for you, not your plans, and thus it is guaranteed by God. What comfort!

This is His hope for you, not your hope, and thus it is guaranteed by God. What relief!

This is His future for you, not your future, and thus it is guaranteed by God. What joy!

No sailor survives at sea without an anchored ship—the ultimate life preserver—and no traveler on the sea of life survives without an anchored life.

What an anchor is to a ship, hope is to the soul. Both ships and souls are kept safe by a firm, secure anchor that keeps holding despite turbulent winds and churning tides.

The Bible says this about Jesus: “We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure” (Heb. 6:19). This means that every authentic Christian has been given such an anchor in Christ
.

We’ve all been in the same boat with cloudy thinking about hope. What we need is clear thinking about what hope is and what it isn’t. I believe there are two kinds of hope: cultural hope and Christian hope.

The common understanding of hope is quite different from the Christian meaning as taught in the Bible. If you live by the cultural meaning of hope, the kind of hope espoused by most people in our world, you may only have a boatful of unfounded optimism and wishful thinking. What you hope for will sometimes happen, and at other times it won’t.

When we live with Christian or biblical hope, we have an anchored life. We are held steady in the midst of any storm. The Bible says that when your hope is anchored in God, He will teach you His truth and will lead you in the way you should go. This prayer is yours to claim: “Guide me in your truth and teach me, for you are God my Savior, and my hope is in you all day long” (Ps. 25:5).

Cultural hope
is an optimistic desire that something will be fulfilled. This kind of hope is unsteady and uncertain because it is based on changeable people and circumstances. People often say things like, “I hope I get the job” or “I hope she gets a scholarship” or “I hope he wins the next election.” These desires, to a large degree, are beyond our control.

Even the things we like to think we have control over (health, finances, home) can be greatly affected by factors outside our grasp. Even the forces of nature can intervene and dash our hopes. Cultural hope can lead to devastating disappointment. And if our spiritual priorities are off, the Bible says, “Such is the destiny of all who forget God; so perishes the hope of the godless” (Job 8:13).

Christian hope
is a guaranteed assurance that something will be fulfilled. This hope is not subject to change because it is anchored in our unchangeable God. That’s why the writer of Hebrews said, “Faith is being
sure
of what we
hope
for and certain of what we do not see” (Heb. 11:1). When Paul said that Christians have the “hope of eternal life” (Titus 1:2; 3:7), he meant we have the
guaranteed assurance
,
the full
confidence
,
the certainty
of eternal life.

The believer’s hope is based on the Bible, God’s unchanging Word. When you feel uncertain about life . . . adrift on an unclear course . . . the Lord wants you to rely on
His
promises
and to have endurance based on
His
provision
. He will not fail you, even when you don’t understand the “whys” of what’s happening in your life. The psalmist was mindful of God’s promise: “Sustain me according to your promise, and I will live; do not let my
hopes
be dashed” (Ps. 119:116).

This hope provides all the certainty you will ever need. As the apostle Paul said, “Everything that was written in the past was written to teach us, so that through endurance and the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have
hope
” (Rom. 15:4). In short, Christian hope is:

• not
  dependent on another person or a group of people, but rather is dependent on the Lord alone.
  
• not
  wishful thinking, vague longing, or trying to fulfill a dream, but rather is assured, unchangeable, and absolute.
  
• not
  determined by circumstances, events, or abilities, but rather is based on what is secured and promised.
  
• not
  merely a desire, but rather the delayed fulfillment of reality.
  
• not
  relying on the stars, luck, chance, or timing,but rather is predestined and settled in the heart and mind of God.
  
• not
  hoping your good will outweigh your bad to get you to heaven,but rather is the certainty of God that you will go to heaven.
  

In him we were also chosen, having been predestined according to the plan of him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will. (Eph. 1:11)