Tuesday’s Trench Lesson

Coffee Hour @ Chicklit Power...

It’s so good to be in the trenches of life, learning and applying as much as we can as we wend our way toward heaven! Grab your coffee and your Strand of Faith and let’s go talk about some powerful truths of despair!

This was such an interesting and exciting root to write in the curriculum of Transform. There were so many revelations that exploded with truth from years past in my own life. That’s not to say that I don’t ever have moments where I am low on hope, but it’s different for me now, much more so after realizing that even though I was a “Christian” for many years before truly beginning this transformation process, I slipped into the slippery slope of despair for a few reasons. 

What is despair? Well, the Merriam Webster’s Dictionary defines it in this way: “To no longer have hope or belief that a situation will get better.” But here’s where it gets a bit tricky: See, many of our Transformers have a faith system, a belief in God, so they all begin this root declaring they don’t struggle with any of the symptoms within the root…until they go through the information process!

The word “despair” is in the God’s love letters to us only three times; however, the word that is linked with despair is in the Bible hundreds of times and that’s its antonym, hope. One of the Hebrew translations for despair defines it in this way: “To be of no hope.”

I can remember, even though I had accepted God into my heart and had my fire insurance, my entrance ticket to heaven, so to speak, having those dark, desperate times where I had no hope for the situation to get better – i.e., divorce, others’ addictions that ripped me off, death of a loved one, losing my career and what I thought to be my identity. We’ve all had those times where we wondered if He was listening, why we even bothered to pray…because that’s what despair does: despair can lead to blame-shifting.

But then there was that moment in time where I jumped…emotionally and spiritually into the Father’s arms, into His will for my life and I began to grasp this truth: that whom/what I put my hope in determines my stability…and my safe landing!

Those who hope in the Lord shall renew their strength…

Hope to you, my friends

Evinda