Because You Know!

If they feel overwhelmed by division, disease, disasters, hatred, if the mountain ahead casts too big of a shadow, they won't know where to start or what to do. They won't know how to fix any one single thing. Everything will feel too shattered. Their whole world will feel splintered into a million tiny shards.

They'll feel hopeless.

If they stay isolated and lonely, convinced no one cares about them or feels the way they do, they won't have the energy to dig themselves out of their dark holes because they'll believe no one will be there when they get out.

Then, they'll feel hopeless.

Suppose they keep taking what we hand them, stuffing themselves with what we know will leave them empty and drained, these steady diets of counterfeit relationships, counterfeit food, counterfeit love, counterfeit success. In that case, they'll stay insatiable, always striving for the next best thing, always thinking satisfaction is just one ladder rung away.

But eventually, they'll give up.

Because they'll feel hopeless.

That's the key: hopelessness!

Sister, YOU are my child.

Brother, YOU are whole, strong, and beloved.

There is no race too long, no wall too high, no gap too wide, no shattered thing too broken to strip you of my HOPE.

For your HOPE is not in flesh and blood, nor in your own abilities.

Your HOPE is in ME, the God who brings dead things to life, who seals the mouths of lions, who slays giants and brings walls down at the sound of a trumpet, who heals and resurrects and restores and makes all things new.

I've done it over and over and OVER again. YOU KNOW THIS.

If I was enough to overcome the world then, why wouldn't I be enough now?

Am I not the same today as I was yesterday?

And because you know MY power...

Because you've read about my power...

Because you've seen my power...

You will have HOPE in this moment.

And because you know MY power lives within you...

You will walk in HOPE towards the shattered pieces.

You will pick them up, one at a time, knowing others are picking up the pieces, too, right alongside you.

You can be put back together.

You are not alone.

You can be filled back up.

I will stitch your HOPE back together. Just bring me the pieces.