A Prayer if You're Feeling Hopeless This Resurrection Season
By: Peyton Garland
Bible Reading:
“We can rejoice, too, when we run into problems and trials, for we know that they help us develop endurance. And endurance develops strength of character, and character strengthens our confident hope of salvation.” Romans 5:3-4 (NLT)
Listen or Read Below:
My childhood flawlessly fits the middle-class suburban narrative. In fact, you might say my family created its mold.
My elementary days were filled with bicycle rides round and round the cul-de-sac. Popsicle juice dripped from my fingers, neighbors refilled their mailbox planters each spring, and Girl Scouts and insurance salesmen always felt safe enough to knock on the front door.
It was the slow, simple things that gave my youth meaning, even when my unhealthy mind couldn’t quite understand why its thoughts moved much faster than the world outside my window on Merrill Drive.
Nonetheless, Providence sustained my small dirt-caked hands as they dug for Rollie-pollies, picked daisies, and yelled at my baby sister not to play too close to the “bite-bite bush”.
Providence still sustains me today, but certainly not in a simpler, suburban way.
I now know why my brain never slows down, why reckless thoughts riddle my soul, and why I will never, ever be normal. There’s a diagnosed name to the beast that left my therapist saying, “There’s medication. There’s treatment. But there’s no cure.”
In other words, there’s hope, but in this fallen world, such hope will ride bitter waves of bittersweet highs and desperate lows. And somehow, in it all, life will go on. It’s not always because I want it to, but because God says resurrection wins.
Providence pieces together my ending. And when I die to what I want life to be, I find the courage to breathe in what surrounds me. I know to appreciate the little bits of truth, filled with hope, that God sprinkles into my ordinary days.
I know to notice the daffodils that pop up each February and litter my pasture, willing to bloom despite the last bite of winter that always threatens to weigh down their stems. I know to pause my routine to take in their color, their posture, and their Maker.
I know to notice the young man who, before loading my groceries in my trunk, knocks on my car window to say, “I noticed a stick caught in your tire, and I got it out.” I know to remember his long hair, funky tennis shoes, and accent that says, “I’m probably not from here, but I’ll treat you, a total stranger, as if you’re home.”
I know to notice when someone wants to stop me in the craft store and remind me just how quickly this season of motherhood will fly by, how much I will miss it, even while my son tries to topple over a glass display. I know to pause my angst and anxiousness to say, “You’re so right. Thank you.”
We often struggle to feel and believe in the things we can’t see, in what our limited bodies can’t fully know, but I wonder if much of our blindness is self-induced. Of course, we don’t willfully, proactively live in the dark, especially as believers in the Light of all life, but the resurrection season will require that we surrender our senses to hope.
In this, we can appreciate the truth, even when it locks our legs, swells our eyes, and leaves us wishing things were so much easier.
Just as our hearts first trusted in Christ’s resurrection for our salvation, our eyes and ears, even our mouths, noses, and fingertips, must give trust mobility, an ability to live and breathe in all things, even the hard ones that aren’t simple, joyful, or curable.
As Easter approaches, don’t force Hope down a one-way street; meet Him, run to Him, embrace Him, and tell Him that He’s welcome in your world, come what may.
Let’s Pray:
Father, in a world filled with uncertainty, sin, and hopelessness, it’s easy to miss the beauty of the resurrection season. May we live as though your resurrection has filled every scene we enter, every space we occupy, and every soul that’s yours—because it does.
Give us an undeniable sense of your grace that longs for us to fight for laughter, community, and the defense of the downtrodden. We can never thank you enough for your death, burial, and resurrection, but as we praise you with what little we can offer, may we bring the hope of your salvation into every season of life.
We love you, Father. Forever, Amen.
Share your reflections on today’s devotional in the Your Daily Prayer discussion on the Crosswalk Forum.
Photo Credit: ©Getty Images/Fizkes
Peyton Garland is an author, editor, and boy mama who lives in the beautiful foothills of East Tennessee. Subscribe to her blog Uncured+Okay for more encouragement.
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