Funny little thing, that thing called HOPE. Really wonderful
if it’s true, and really bad if it’s false, but the very nature of it, doesn’t always allow for clear distinction in the midst of circumstantial matters of the
heart.
And that little thing called HOPE is a hard little bugger to
kill in a heart that’s alive and filled with it.
But when that heart finds that the HOPE she believed in was
false and built on false expectations, it is at this point that the little
heart is at a critical state in her existence.
She has several choices. This little heart can choose to
shutdown altogether and detach from the way she feels. She can choose to run
from the thing that hurt her, and try to numb the pain by quickly filling it
with something else. She can become bitter and angry—blaming God, others, and
herself. Or she can actively and consistently replace the false hope and
disappointment with the truth of God’s love and hope from His Word.
Romans 5:5 says, “Now hope does not disappoint, because the
love of God has been poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to
us.” God’s love will sustain our hopeful hearts in the midst of disappointment
if we can keep the precious little thing from shutting down on us.
Many of us don’t want to keep our hearts open because we are
too vulnerable in that state, and we feel unprotected. In that place of
vulnerability, we call ourselves “a mess” and feel like there is no way to stay
safe.
But if we shut our hearts down, we do not fully realize the
repercussions of it. We cannot choose to only shut down our heart to the bad
and not the good. When we allow part of our heart to shut down, we keep
everything out—God, people, love, joy, hope, and sadness.
We must fight to keep our hearts open and tender before the
Lord in the midst of dissappointment, even if it means we just cannot “pull
ourselves together” sometimes. The only way for us to be healed is to continue
to bring an open heart to the Lord and let Him restore hope and remove disappointment
with His love.
