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“Hope is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul and sings the tune without the words and never stops at all.” ~Emily Dickinson

Hope is tenuous thing. How do we hold onto hope and healing in the midst of all that life throws at us? Turn on the television and we are bombarded with tragic stories resulting from the global pandemic ravaging our world to terrorist activity and outright warfare. As Proverbs 13:12 aptly says, “Hope deferred makes the heart sick…”

Yet, one of the recurring patterns in the Psalms is falling into the pit, crying to God for help, lingering long in liminal space, then being drawn out of the pit to a safe place where God gives new hope, a new song and where others are drawn to God by the Psalmist’s life. An example is King David’s declaration in Psalm 40:2, “He lifted me out of the slimy pit, out of the mud and mire; he set my feet on a rock and gave me a firm place to stand.” Does David still remember the pit when he sings a new song of hope? What did he do with the persistent, aching pain when his circumstances failed to change? How did his mess become a message that has reverberated down through the generations to reach us today?

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“For God alone my soul waits in silence, for my hope is from Him. (Psalm 62:5).

We caught up with some old friends the other day over lunch. Surprisingly, we came away buoyed by hope. He is 88 years old, she is 85. Rarely have we found older people such as them vibrant with hope. Sure, they experience the aches, pains and surgeries that come with aging, yet their minds are sharp, interested and exuding joy and hope for the future. Their refrain of, “We are so blessed at this time in our lives,” echoed inside us of hope.   The Triggering   Hope has often wrestled me to the ground. I remember how several years ago, we returned home with physical, emotional and spiritual depletion after ministering in India. I was in a vulnerable place. The weariness of travel, constant hypervigilance over food security and helping hurting people left me hollowed out and in dire need of self-care. Paradoxically, co-creating with God made my spirit soar and sustained me with delight. Despite the exhaustion, I was thankful and filled with hope and joy.

“India teaches me again and again, that the categories into which I try to divide things don’t hold up.” ~ Dena Moes

Nevertheless, “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy” (John 10:10). The enemy took advantage of my physical and emotional vulnerability to wound me and steal my joy. Harsh words from someone close brought me low. Intentionally hurtful and blaming accusations left me feeling misunderstood and without recourse. It brought me low and shut everyone out. My sweet joy evaporated and I hid, engulfed in sorrow. The enemy whispered his destructive lies scraping the sides of my soul, as he tried his best to take me out. Although I recognised and observed his tactics from a disengaged part of myself, I was caught off-guard and triggered into past emotional wounds that I felt powerless to control. I lost hope.   George Stubbs, a famous British artist, enjoyed equestrian painting. One such painting depicts a hidden cave at the bottom of a hill where a lion-in-waiting hides. The lion smells an exquisite stallion galloping down the hill in total freedom, unaware of impending danger. The following paintings depict the lion tearing the flesh off the felled, blood-stained, doomed stallion. I find it compelling, as it vividly depicts how the devil seeks to entrap and devour me. How should I respond to this threat? Scripture tells me: “Be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour” (1 Peter 5:8). The enemy knows how and when to attack, making it all the more important that I stay on guard and alert.

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“The very least you can do in your life is figure out what you hope for. And the most you can do is live inside that hope. Not admire it from a distance but live right in it, under its roof.” ~ Barbara Kingsolver

Yet, I struggled. Strolling through my favourite beach market at my beloved Byron Bay, my heart hurt. It was a tough, messy year and I was emotionally triggered twice in the latter half. Questions emerged from deep within me: Will there ever be an end to past pain that rears its ugly head in the present? Dare I hope for healing or am I bound to continually reexperience the fallout of recurring pain? Why do I get so deeply triggered that I want to run away and hide? What do I need to understand for my triggers to be healed? How do I risk hope for healing and change? How do I help others find life when my heart aches? These questions arose from a searching heart and a profound desire to live whole and healed. What began as an ache for the abundant life that Jesus offers is an ongoing search for hope.   Crushed Hope   The roots of my struggle with hope emerged from a childhood where I was heartsick with crushed hope. As a fearful, sad child, I learned early that the world was a hostile and hurtful place and there would be no safe person I could turn to. An early defining message was, “I wish you had never been born.” I lived out that message telling myself, “I have no right to exist.” Withdrawing and retreating within, I lived with an ache, but revealed little feeling or hint of the real me. My belief was, “If I allow the real me to come out, people will see who I am and discover that I am undesirable.” A rich inner fantasy world compensated for aloneness and I lived empty in a world I created.   At sixteen I met my husband. I believed in fairy-tales and my fantasy world was alive and well. I met my Knight in Shining armour and hope soared – he would carry me off to his castle where we would live happily ever-after. The chinks in his armour were somehow ignored. I was able to quiet my fears because, after all, I had no right to exist. I found a new direction to fill myself up. With little sense of self and to gain his approval, I became who I thought he wanted me to be. There was no awareness that my whole life was centred around the demand that others fill me up and satisfy my aching thirst and no comprehension that the path to joy is to give yourself away (Jesus). I continued to live unhealed.   It was after a seminar titled Escape from the Ordinary, that I gave my heart to Jesus. I was eighteen years old. He poured grace into my life, but the unfamiliarity of grace made it hard to accept, as it did not fit my image as undeserving. Jesus opened my spiritual eyes, but I shut them again. He offered hope, but I chose to keep the fences I had built around myself. They crushed my hope and stunted spiritual growth.   Over the years, many sincere Christians told me that all that was needed was to pray, read my Bible and walk in the Spirit, except they seemed unable to articulate what the latter involved. The assumption that prayer and Bible reading would lead to abundant life was difficult to accept, as this supposes that we are singularly spiritual beings. The was at odds with Mark 12:30 where we are urged to love God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength or passion. Surely this suggests that we possess other parts also in need of God’s healing. I knew He saved me and I knew Jesus healed all manner of sickness, disease, demonic possession and oppression while He walked the earth. But how could he heal me and what might freedom from emotional wounds and injuries look like? What would it be like to risk hope?   It took a major crisis (much like COVID 19) for me to ask God for the courage to enter the pain I was avoiding. Deeply buried secrets were opened and He exposed the ways I sought to quench my thirst. Deep sorrow enveloped me, as I grieved my losses. God led me through repentance to hope. My broken marriage went through a time of change, growth, and forgiveness. Jesus, the Wounded Healer, began to heal my wounds as I opened my spirit to receive His grace. Why, then, was I so triggered after India?   The Hound of Heaven    Life can be brutal. Based on a 1983 movie The Hound of Heaven: A Modern Day Adaption (2014), features a young girl who believes that she is fleeing death, when she is actually running away from her only chance at life and hope. Based on a poem by Francis Thompson it tells of a tortured soul running from God. Thoreau (2013, p.7) writes, “The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation…A stereotyped but unconscious despair is concealed even under what are called the games and amusements of mankind.” In other words, what if this is as good as it gets? What if, “Most men… die with their song still inside them?”  What is the song inside us and what awakens the song within? What awakens hope?   Photo by Nathanaël Desmeules on Unsplash

“Hope is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul and sings the tune without the words and never stops at all.” ~ Emily Dickinson

Despite her persistent running, the young girl is relentlessly pursued by the Hound of Heaven. Isaiah 9:6 (MSG) claims, “…there’ll be no limits to the wholeness he [God] brings.” What, then, is wholeness and why do we run from it? Wholeness is defined in the dictionary as “the state of forming a complete and harmonious whole; unity; the state of being unbroken or undamaged; good physical or mental health.” 1 Thessalonians 5:23 (MSG) mentions wholeness as, “May God himself, the God who makes everything holy and whole, make you holy and whole, put you together – spirit, soul, and body…” We were created whole, but when Adam and Eve disobeyed God, spiritual and physical death, damage and disorder entered the world, evidenced when their son Cain, killed his brother Abel (Genesis 4; 6:3). Perhaps we run from wholeness because of painful disappointment, hurt and loss of hope, blaming our longings and desires that we then proceed to slaughter. Hope is a risky business and sometimes we doubt we are up for it. Perhaps hope for wholeness is why I write this blog and why I write of my triggering, to explore what it means to live free, unhindered and unencumbered by the bondage of past wounds. Beneath my occasional quiet desperation over my triggers and often over the state of the world with its brutal, enduring wars, is hope that springs from recognising that I am born into a different sort of war, a spiritual war where Satan seeks to ravage, enslave and bind. My head knows I simply cannot regain my freedom that was lost from the Garden of Eden apart from Jehovah God who sent Jesus to set me free.   This advent season is cause for renewed hope. Isaiah 9:6-7 is a birth announcement like no other. This baby would be unique. God would actually walk among us while living out His names:

Wonderful Counselor” indicates that Jesus will be a supernatural source of extraordinary wisdom – amazing news for those who need guidance. “Mighty God” indicates that Jesus will be divinely strong and powerful – amazing news for those who are weak. “Everlasting Father” indicates that Jesus will care for his people forever, as a father cares for his children – amazing news for those who are alone and unappreciated. “Prince of Peace” indicates that Jesus will bring deep well-being and right relationships – amazing news for all of us who lack peace with each other and with God (Witmer, 2016).

Fullness and boundless hope are promised through Jesus.

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“May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit”(Romans 15:13).

Closing…   Perhaps hope is not our enduring experience because until the coming renewal of all things we live with a tension between now and not yet. While we wait, we suffer the tyranny of our inmost being – unsatisfied longings that tear at the soul. Largely, we are unaware of the extent of our bondage, retreating into distractions and addictions that kill our desire for love and for God. Yet Jesus, recognising our deep thirst and our bruised and broken hearts, pursues us as the Hound of Heaven, desiring that we come and drink freely from the Water of Life.     These days hope and me have made peace. My heart can sing a song of hope because it knows that God is good and that healing and freedom are only found in Christ and nowhere else. There is a profound hope that the best is yet to come. And thankfully, the Hound of Heaven still pursues me with the assurance that, “On him we have set our hope that he will continue to deliver us” (2 Corinthians 1: 10). Our recent lunch with the older couple confirmed this, that even in old age, hope, joy and gratitude can be our portion, for God says: “Even to your old age and grey hairs, I am he, I am he who will sustain you. I have made you and I will carry you; I will sustain you and I will rescue you” (Isaiah 46:4).    Declaration…   I declare that I am in God’s waiting room, anticipating and expecting the renewal of all things, while learning the meaning of hope. I declare that I am blessed with passionate hope as a gift from God and that He will never change His mind about me.   Prayer…   “I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in his holy people, and his incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is the same as the mighty strength he exerted when he raised Christ from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms, far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every name that is invoked, not only in the present age but also in the one to come” (Ephesians 1:18-21).   Reflect… Listen to: Somewhere In Your Silent Night – Casting Crowns | Lyrics | musicworshiptracks If hope were a colour, what colour would it be…?   If I could taste hope, it would taste like…?   If I could smell hope, it would smell like…?   If I could touch hope, it would feel like…?   Physically, I recognise hope sitting in my body by…?   When I talk about hope, I feel…?   About the author: Dr. Paula Davis is a clinical counsellor, supervisor and educator specialising in psychological trauma. She has worked in higher education over many years as senior lecturer in counselling. Along with her husband she designs and delivers marriage enrichment/education programs in Australia, Africa, Sri Lanka, India and Europe.   References O’Conor, J. F. X. (1912). A study of Francis Thompson’s Hound of Heaven. UK: John Lane Company. Rohr, R. (1987). Broken and blessed: A retreat. Retrieved from http://link.bu.edu/portal/Broken-and-blessed–a-retreat-Richard-Rohr./D_V-h-I4-Hw/ Thompson, F. (1983). The Hound of Heaven. New York: Morehouse Publishing. Thoreau, H. D. (2013). Walden. USA: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform. Witmer, S. (2016). To us a child is born. desiringGod. Retrieved from https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/to-us-a-child-is-born