Do You Want to Be a Prisoner of Hope?

Can I be brutally honest with you?

I really don’t feel like sitting here to write this post. I am doing so at the urging and insistence of my wife. I do so partially under protest and partially because I know I need to do so. When it is all said and done I am sure I will thank her for the encouragement to write.

I have found myself in a hide-and-go-seek sort of existence lately, with my mood fluctuating from high, then to low, and most often stuck in the middle of who knows where! Neutral would be a good word to describe where I am at times – not moving forward or backward.

I am simply here. It’s unnerving.

I am not used to the spectrum of emotions playing their tune on my piano.

Dealing with the ups and downs, the ins and outs of the recent episode of “I lost my job” (or should I say my job lost me?) has been the culprit.

My mood has bordered on “I don’t really give a rip about anything”.

Have you ever experienced this sort of thing?

Please tell me you have so I can at least pretend to know I am not alone.

Yesterday was a day long struggle after learning earlier in the morning a reasonably strong lead I had on potential employment most likely is not going to work out.

In retrospect, I see this twist in the road as protection. I woke up from a brief, post-lunch nap and felt like I landed on Mars. My demeanor was other-worldly. I felt totally surrounded by an insidious heaviness.

Its aim was to push or keep me down.

In many respects, I felt imprisoned – like I was led into an inner cell by a harsh warden who decided to throw away the key. I could not take it any longer. I had to do something, anything to get out of the funk in which I found myself.

To put it mildly, it was a battle to finally talk myself into doing something positive and constructive vs. succumbing to the resistance I felt to do nothing.

I laced up my boots, put on my warm gear, got in my car, and traveled to a local nature preserve to walk a five mile loop through the woods. As soon as I started to walk the snow began to fly, driven by a sustained wind.

Life giving!

No one else was around except for the several deer I spotted as I hiked.

Doubly life giving!

In short, the time spent outdoors and walking was exhilarating!

By the time I got home the earlier feelings of imprisonment I experienced dissipated.

Good riddance!

They were replaced by a sense of being a “prisoner of hope”!

Knowing there will always be a light at the end of the tunnel, or in this case a light shining in the apparent darkness, helped. I stumbled across this verse which hit the nail on the head:

“Come back to the place of safety, all you prisoners of hope. I promise this very day I will repay two blessings for each of your troubles.” Zechariah 9:12 (NLT)

Do you feel like the walls are closing in on you where you too “don’t give a rip” about much?

If so, might I suggest a few things?

• To borrow a line from the last of the Rocky movies – Fighters fight. Resist the desire to do nothing and throw a few punches of your own. Fight!

• Act – get up and do something. Anything.

• Come to terms with your emotions and do not give precedence to your feelings. They are deceptive.

• Do whatever it takes to swing the pendulum in the opposite direction.

• Call a friend or talk to your spouse and open the trash compactor up so as to get the junk out.

• By all means, pray. As Dave Ramsey once said, “Phone home ET! He is waiting for your call!”

All of us have traveled plenty of roads to realize life is not always a bowl of cherries. Honestly, it is hard at times. OK, a majority of the time!

If we let it, it pushes us down.

Don’t let it!

Become a prisoner of hope, seeing the light in the supposed darkness, knowing you will receive double for your troubles!

By the way Jackie, thanks for the kick in the pants and encouraging me to write! Can you recall a time where you simply lost hope while clinging to a sliver of light that ultimately helped you through your dark moment?