Hope Anyway by Leeana TankersleySample

Day Five

It’s Not All Up to You

One of the hardest things about hard things is that you are typically not the only one in your life who is affected by the hard thing. You likely have a network of people who are impacted, each processing their own big feelings in their own time and in their own way.

What I didn’t realize at the beginning of my grief was how hard it would be to entrust other people and their process to God and to let God be God. 

We pick up our problems and our people’s problems when we lose our hope in God’s potential, the divine possibilities. We forget the creative genius of the . . . 

rainbow

burning bush 

manna

pillar of fire

cloud by day

wilderness

mountaintop

belly of the fish

stormy sea

stable

star in the East

dove

wedding

cross

earthquake

bread and wine

spirit 

These were all God’s way of saying the same thing to humanity: “I am here. I am here to help you, give you rest, give you hope. I am here to protect you, nourish you, save you. I am here. It’s not all up to you.” 

Do you need this phrase as much as I do? If we need this truth so deeply, then why do we forget it so easily, so consistently? I don’t know, exactly. But it’s been happening since the beginning of time. We’ve always needed prophets and poets, signs and wonders, to bring us back, to remind us of our history, to remind us of what brought us here, and to remind us of our place in it all. 

I had to reinvest hope in the reality that God was not only holding me but God was holding those I loved. God’s arms were wide enough and strong enough for every hurting heart. In a simple prayer, just whispering a name, I could bring someone to this Help. I could say, “Please watch over him. Please watch over her. I’m out of big ideas except one: you.” 

Perhaps you are carrying a load you were never meant to carry, don’t have to carry, could learn to set down. 

You do not have to fix all the broken things by yourself. It’s not all up to you. 

God, what broken thing am I trying to fix right now because I mistakenly believe it’s all up to me?