Bloody hope.

"...few of us enter the tragedy of living in a fallen world and simultaneously struggle with God until our hearts bleed with hope. We either give into pain with a hopeless cynicism, or we settle for an artificial resolution that insists that things really aren't too bad and we need not muck around in the "negatives" of life." -The Healing Path by Dan Allendar, p. 5

Every once in awhile I will read something that resonates so deeply with my own life experience that my heart cannot help but be changed. I feel understood when words can be wrapped around what my heart is feeling. To feel understood is to feel known.

Usually feeling known is a source of great joy for me. It's something that happens rarely in my life, thus I deeply long for it. Lately, however, the affects of feeling known have been deeply painful. I'm going through something right now that I don't really feel very understood in. To read Dan Allendar's words encourages me that I'm not completely alone in it. I'm experiencing first-hand that life is full of disappointment. Sometimes God chooses to allow us to experience pain and suffering. Sometimes he doesn't step in when we cry out for Him. Often times life throws us curve balls that we aren't expecting, and the result can be tragically painful. In times when we dare to hope--for healing, or change, or resolution, or reconciliation--we can be left with a feeling of emptiness far deeper than when we first began. In times like this, to continue to bleed with hope feels nothing but foolish. My alternate path to hope tends to be the one of cynicism--I sort of give up on my good feelings and get comfortable in my let downs. But I also know a lot of people who choose an artificial resolution. You all know one (maybe you are one). The person who never has a bad day... who forces the positive out of every drop of life. The problem with both alternatives to real hope is that they either rob us of true joy or deny the reality of pain. Both are cheap imitations.

Hope is painful. It aches. It longs. It desires. It waits.

I don't understand it and I am miserable in it right now. I'm finding myself exhausted as I, for once in my life, am fighting to stay on the true path of hope. How easy it would be to resign to the dismal conclusion that this is as good as God gets. But the easy way is rarely the right way. I don't understand it and I don't like it very much. It doesn't make sense, and it hurts more than the wounds themselves. But because I long for more than this, I let my heart bleed.