Come, let us rebuild……

Yesterday, I promised I would tell you how I got from there to here. How I rebuilt my life after trying to destroy it. I can’t remember the detail, sorry. How I started to put the bricks back into the wall. How I decided which bricks to build with and which ones to discard. There was no quick fix, I know that. It’s still a work in progress 29 years on. I have no magic answers. Lots of tiny, tiny steps forward and some giant steps backwards. I felt alone and isolated. I’d demonstrated that no one mattered enough to stay alive for. So I had to find reasons to live for myself. Not to please anyone else. Not because anyone else expected it or demanded it. I had to work out what mattered to me. However long that took. In the meantime, staying alive mattered. Sleep and eating regularly became a routine. And work. I only had a couple of months to turn my degree around. I’d been to so few lectures in the past term that it was suggested that I repeat the year. I didn’t want to do that. It felt like a waste of a year. I was determined. I studied to a rigorous schedule. Getting a good degree was my main focus. It gave me purpose. It kept my mind occupied. I wanted to prove I could do it and I did.

And then life took over. I just got on with living. I fell in love. I got a job. I got married. I moved into a flat. I started a family. We moved North. The family grew. My life took on a life of its own.

I’ve had my ups and downs over the years. Great big ups and downs. Living with the contents of my head continues to be a struggle, particularly in the winter and particularly around Christmas (so be kind and try to understand……).

So what has kept me going?

HOPE.

It’s as simple as that.

HOPE.

Hope is strong and hope is beautiful. It is not a weak, wishy-washy, vague wish that things could be different.

Without hope, we admit defeat. We lose the will to survive. Hope is survival. Hope is an act of will. Hope is the resolute belief (sometimes the size of the tiniest seed) that all will be well, when everything in your head is screaming the opposite. When all of the evidence around you points to the contrary.

Without hope, how can you ever trust anyone again when you have been betrayed by your wife?

Without hope, how can you even imagine carrying on with your life when your partner, your other half, is no longer there by your side?

Without hope, how can you believe you will ever be happy without a child of your own?

Without hope, how can you face going through the horrors of chemotherapy again?

Without hope, how can start planning for a future that is different from your dreams?

Without hope, how can you face yet another interview?

Without hope, how can you believe you will ever conquer your addiction?

Hope speaks into despair. Hope is all that helps.

Hope is irrational. It makes no sense. It’s a divine mystery, a precious gift from God. It’s inexplicable. Wonderful in its simplicity. It is just there. We can’t buy it. We can’t manufacture it. It just resides within the human spirit, a tiny spark that ignites a passion to survive.

When everything and everyone is telling us to give up, hope gives us the grace to carry on.

When we are knocked down again, hope gives us the resilience to get back up.

When we fail, hope gives us the courage to try and try again.

Hope is sometimes the only reason to get out of bed in the morning.

Hope is sometimes the tiniest flame flickering in the darkness. Hopes lights up the darkness and the darkness can never put it out.

Hope restores broken relationships; hope rebuilds homes and families that have been destroyed; hope repairs lives that have been damaged.

We should never take this hope for granted, because without it, we are lost. Without hope, life is not worth living.

Hope is intentional. It carries purpose.

I believe in better. I always have. Every day is a new opportunity to make the world a better place, to make my life and relationships better. Hope is what drives me. Every day has to matter. I want to make a difference. Every day has to count. That’s why I’m so hard on myself. Why I expect so much from myself – and from others. Why I’m so into challenges I guess. And next year’s challenge is to do without challenges, to be kind to myself, to change my story…..let’s see how that works out.

Hope starts from within. We have to start with ourselves. We have to dig deep and find the hope within ourselves, however deep it is buried.

But then we can say, as Nehemiah did after surveying the damage for himself –

Come, let us rebuild…..  Nehemiah 2:17

He knew he needed help. He couldn’t undertake this monumental task alone.

“You see the trouble we are in: Jerusalem lies in ruins, and its gates have been burned with fire. Come, let us rebuild the wall of Jerusalem, and we will no longer be in disgrace.” I also told them about the gracious hand of my God on me and what the king had said to me.

They replied, “Let us start rebuilding.” So they began this good work.  Nehemiah 2:17-18

We cannot do it alone. We need help. I needed help back when I was 22. I saw a psychiatrist. I had some good friends. I had Andy, who has always stood by me and believed in me, even when I was far from believing in myself. We have to be wise as to who we rely on for support and advice. We have to choose carefully. But we have to be honest and admit that we need help. Hope can only take us so far on our own. We were created to be in community, to rely on each other. It’s OK to need help. It is human and it is good and it is what God intended.

So come, let us rebuild….

Helen this must have been difficult to write, to remember . I think a lot of people have reached that point at sometime in their life, some will have tried to end the anguish and some found hope to carry on and rebuild the ruins. I for one think it takes an enormous amount of courage to rebuild , I am pleased you succeeded and are in a better place. X     A Facebook comment on my post yesterday

So come, let us find the courage to rebuild……