Tag: despair

Help! I’m Broken, and I Can’t Get Up!

~ Barbara ~ 6 Comments

Happy September everyone—a tree in our backyard is already boasting red leaves! This month we will embark on a journey to hope.

After countless hours of frustration, I contracted a Pakistani creator on the other side of the globe to design new covers for my companion books, I Was Broken, Too and Finding Hope. After many (emphasis on “many”) attempts, it came together. To celebrate, I will share a thought from one of the books each week. I hope this first post resonates with you.  

Fading hope is like fading light; it darkens our surroundings. We don’t choose to go to this dark place, but neither do we choose not to go. Life’s assaults weaken us and, in our diminished state, they carry us to places where fear threatens and vision dims. In the midst of the darkness we can’t see a way out, and the prominence of our problems obscures the hand of God. It’s a shadowy, murky place to live. Who of us wouldn’t want to experience a miracle… in the midst of our desperation?

The path of hopelessness is a downward spiral that will continue to deplete your spirit. I know. I lived there—the place where you may now live. The place of brokenness.

Under the weight of sorrow upon sorrow, amazingly, somewhere deep within, hope still flickered. Haltingly, I made choices that set me on a course that would restore my hope. This book tells of my journey and the four paths I walked to find hope again. I share them as a weary traveler who was dangerously close to losing her grip. My struggle, sadly, is not uncommon.

I cannot erase your pain or restore your loss. But I can offer you four paths to renew your hope.*

Next week, we will step onto the first path to hope.

Now available on Amazon:
I Was Broken, Too: Four Paths to Restore Hope
Finding Hope: 65 Meditations for a Broken Heart

* Excerpted from I Was Broken, Too, chapters one and two.

Keep your Eye on the Bell

~ Barbara ~ 2 Comments

Nine-year-old Zoe surprised me when she said she wanted to attempt the rock-climbing wall. I watched her harness up, admiring my granddaughter’s adventurous spirit. Once secure, she started the climb but didn’t get far when she began to struggle. Flailing, she finally pushed off and eased the rope to let herself down. Her face wore defeat and her lower lip quivered as she listed all the reasons she didn’t make it to the top. The footings were uneven, the wall grazed her knee, she got confused where to step next and which rock to grasp. We stood back and watched others nimbly climb the wall and ring the bell at the top, proclaiming their success. I knew Zoe would try again.

This time she scaled the wall easily and grinned down at me when the bell rang out her victory. Once her feet were back on the ground, I asked her why she succeeded this time. “I didn’t look at the footings at all and I shook it off when I hit the wall,” Zoe said. Then she added the zinger, “I just kept looking up at the bell.” Zoe learned a lesson that day that extended beyond a rock-climbing wall.*

Obstacles, insecurities, and fear are glaringly visible and hard to ignore. But God offers us a way to move past them that requires simple action but determined willpower. Isaiah gives us the key in chapter 40, verse 26:

Lift your eyes and look to the heavens.

In essence he’s saying, take your eyes off your problem and look up at your Creator. Let your focus be on the Problem-Solver, not on the problem. This simple action will change your perspective, raise your spirit, and give you hope.

*Taken from I Was Broken, Too, Four Paths to Restore Hope by Barbara Higby, page 20.