Hope has wings and other thoughts on grief

Posted by Harmony Dust on Saturday, June 4, 2011 · 16 Comments

“I am still confident of this, I will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living” Psalms 27:13

I sat under the shade of the tree in my backyard on a beautiful spring day. The sun and cloudless sky did not share my gloom. A squirrel scurried gleefully along my fence on a mission to steal mulberries from the tree. He did not seem to notice that life, as I knew it, was over. He did not hear the echo of broken promises or the painful thumping of my bleeding heart.

My prayers were unintelligible groans peppered with questions. I begged for answers. Why? How? What’s next? Is this the end of my marriage? Is there hope?

Hope. Hope is precisely the thing that fueled me on the day I made my vows. Hope that a generational pattern of divorce could end with me. Hope that forever meant something. And in that moment under the tree, I had to choose where I would place my hope. I remembered the words of a friend who had been battling infertility.

“Hope looks very different depending on where you place it. Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but hope in the Lord is an anchor for your soul.”

She chose to put her hope in God. Not in the doctor’s reports or in the dozens of negative pregnancy tests, but in God.

Where would I place my hope? In the idea of restoration? In the wake of chaos that surrounded me after my husband broke his vows? An anchor for my soul, I determined, was precisely what I needed. I chose to place my hope in Jesus. I decided that I would trust Him…in the face of circumstances that called my faith into question; I chose to trust that His plan for me was still good.

I watched a butterfly flutter wildly about my yard. Somehow, in it’s flickering wings I saw glimpses of God’s promises for me. “I will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living”, I told my soul. I took this to mean that the circumstances I was facing would someday change. That the blanket of despair that cast its shadow over my life could only last for a time.

I am sitting under the same tree. Two springs have passed since this season began. A butterfly with black, velvety wings is resting on my rose bush and I am overwhelmed by an awareness of God’s goodness. I realize that this is God’s promise come to pass. Not that my circumstances have changed, but that I see His goodness in the midst of them. In my daughter’s dimpled smile, in the friends who wept with me when I needed to weep, and stood with me when I needed to stand. I see His goodness and I am thankful. God is good. His character is good. His plans are good. And He is worthy of my trust.

~Harmony Dust

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