Personal Hope

by Joey Davis

When the elders called me aside to tell me that they wanted me to seek my future with another church, I was very hurt. However, it's strange how times like these can cause one to care more for others than oneself.

For the past five years, my articles in this paper have been intended as a source of hope. Today is no different.

To give hope to someone in despair is one of life's noblest deeds. And strangely enough, we who have come close to losing our hope can be of great help to others who are watching their own hope fade into oblivion.

All I usually have to do when I write a message of hope to another soul is to sit back and recall my past. What was it that someone said or did for me when my hope was at stake and I felt is silently slipping away? Who or what revived my dying spirits and gently renewed my zest for life again?

From personal experience I can testify that often hope comes back into our souls from friends' simply spoken words, from gentle hugs or caring touches, or most of all, from one insightful line written in a note that reaches beyond our pain and brings up a wonderful surging of hope within us.

Keep in mind that when people believe, think, or feel that all hope has finally vanished, that is the moment they surrender. They give up. They see absolutely no logical reason on earth to get out of bed in the mornings and must spend the days reminding themselves to breathe in and breathe out. And without some measure of hope residing in them, they lie spiritually at death's door. I know the truth of this. . . been there, done that.

So it is then, at this strategic moment in our lives, that a few kind actions or words from us can sustain and encourage the soul until real hope returns to the heart, making it strong enough to stand on its own two feet again.

In my life, I've been handed many seemingly fatal blows to my spirit. This is not the first, nor will it be the last. Life is lived in cycles and God works in seasons. I just happen to be experiencing "winter" a little early this year. However, just as each December I understand that if God allows us to live long enough, we'll see another spring, I realize the same is true for my family and the Mt. Juliet family as well.

In the words of Paul, "we are troubled on every side, yet

not distressed; we are perplexed, but not. in despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed." ( 2 Corinthians 4:8-9)