Sustainability

     It's 7:15 a.m. and I've been up for hours, knitting.
Faith patiently awaits our next great adventure while sleeping on the daybed.  Patient puppy.

I have been thinking the last while (translation: weeks) about what the loss of hope means.

Despair comes to mind; lost-ness, fear, worry....the great "it's dark and I'm afraid" feeling that can become a fulltime job before you know it has hit you.

I decided to write this post because I know of a few friends who are struggling with the loss of hope.  Wayward family members grieve their hearts; the longing to see the "wanderer return" is ever in their line of vision.

Where is God in all this?  I think He is in a different place than we expect to find Him.
I have found my own past year, by all accounts, "unsustainable"....which means I shouldn't be able to bear up without going looney on a momentary basis.

If you are one of my struggling friends, or someone I don't know----perhaps God glorifies Himself best in the seemingly unsustainable moments.  I plod on not because I am strong-willed...but because I continually cast my longing and pain on the only One who can make sense out of this unsustainability.  He is able to help me sustain, to not only keep going but to dare to believe His plans for my future are "yes and amen."

If you are very, very brave, perhaps you will embrace the pain He has allowed.  We Westerners run so quickly from pain.  It just might have a purpose that He plans to use to glorify Himself.  I know of what I speak.  My pain is something I must resolve to yet conquer every day.

Above all, He loves the wanderer more than we can fathom. 
Take heart, and hope, in that today.