"For you have been my hope, Sovereigh Lord, my confidence since my youth. From birth I have relied on you; you brought me forth from my mother's womb. I will ever praise you." (Psalm 71:5-6, TNIV)
Hope is a beautiful gem. It gets me through life. My hope is Christ.
If I have to go on alone, then that's exactly what I'll do. I'm only alone where people choose to walk away from me. But in Christ I am never, for a single moment, alone.
I've been rejected. I know how abandonment feels. I know what it feels like to be treated as if you're not important and not needed. I have tried to understand why I'm not normal like everyone else.
I know what it's like to be left out because of the lack of finances. I know how it feels to be tolerated, wishing I could die.
Hope kept me going. Somewhere deep inside me hope wouldn't let go or give up except when I gave it all up to God.
My birth was regretted, my innocence stolen from my childhood, and in my desperate search for love I fell into the hands of users and abusers.
I've had a knife held to my throat and have been thrown across a room as the devil laughed while I sought out a savior.
Hope relentlessly held on as my heart shattered in the hands of men who didn't know how to be a man. I hated being a vulnerable woman and enveyed those who found true love.
True Love held me when I could not see Him. Hope pursued me as I headed for the grave.
I have a hero whom my heart longs for -- a man who is everything I've ever wanted. I reach for him but he pulls away sometimes. Do I hold onto hope or do I let him go?
Can my bruised heart withstand another break?
I fix my eyes on the Hope for the hopeless -- the Lover who holds me in the darkest hours of fear.
I long to be loved the way God intended when He made woman to be man's helpmate and companion. I want to fill the hole left beneath man's heart when I was formed from his rib.
I want to be precious and cherished and adored by a "man after God's heart."
This is my hope placed in the Hope of all life.
If he runs from me, God runs to me. He wipes the tears from my eyes so that I can see His faithful, enduring, eternal love that's been there for me all the days of my life.
I am cherished and adored. Where others have raped me, abandoned me, rejected me, ignored me, spit on me, and tossed me away as a soiled piece of trash, Hope gathered me up in His arms and held me to His heart.
This is the hope to which I cling, the passion I embrace, the fulfillment of all my needs.
(2006 journal)
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