The Hope that Finds Us
Several years ago, I was in a season of excruciating pain. We had just left Mexico, where we were serving orphans and vulnerable children. Our time there was over. Choosing family health over ministry was one of the hardest decisions we have ever made.
Don’t get me wrong - family always comes before service, but we had no idea if coming back to the US would, in fact, even help our family.
Going onto the “mission field” in Mexico was a lifelong dream for us. It took:
10 years of praying, going on vision/mission trips, and seeking the Lord to decide with which organization we would serve
1.5 years of forming a team of financial partners
Attending months of in-country language school
Months of preparation
Months of on-the-job training
All of this in order to live and thrive in a cross-cultural environment with our five children.
And we DID thrive. For 4 years.
Until we didn’t.
Mental health struggles can be insurmountable in any environment, perhaps especially so in a foreign one.
Now, hope is often thought to be merely another word for positivity. However, hope is something that exists even when we don’t feel hopeful. The book of Hebrews tells us that we have this hope, as an anchor.
Fast-forward to 2020 and we are living in Colorado, broken, angry, wounded, and without any sense of purpose whatsoever. Just writing about this sends a wave of nausea through my body.
Lake City, CO is a place of fond memories from childhood, so it seemed logical to seek solace deep in those mountains only 4 hours from our new home. While wandering through a little shop there, I came across the best smelling candle to ever pass these nostrils. It is in a jar, handmade in small batches… and I had to have it. I laid the money down and walked out with it firmly grasped in my hands.
As I returned home to chaos, I couldn’t bring myself to burn the candle. Instead, I would just open the jar, take the lid off, and deeply inhale. I can’t explain it, but the aroma became associated with something very essential to life: hope.
Now, hope is often thought to be merely another word for positivity. However, hope is something that exists even when we don’t feel hopeful. The book of Hebrews tells us that we have this hope, as an anchor.
Some bizarre logic inside me thought if I kept the lid on, I could hold hope in the jar, and access it whenever I needed it by just removing the lid. I took it off every day, for a while. Sometimes multiple times a day.
The candle has relocated several times…My dresser. My desk. The kitchen counter. I never wanted hope to be very far away.
I understand all of the technical, biological facts about how our olfactory sense (fancy term for sense of smell) is closely connected to the amygdala (the part of the brain that processes emotions) The amygdala is searching for danger 4 times a second, regulated by the other parts of our brain with messages like, “yep, we’re good” or “nope, this is bad.”
So, when I’m smelling the candle, I realize something biological is going on that calms me. The scent lowers my heart rate. I can intellectually understand all this, while still, smelling that candle touches a place in my soul that is way beyond biology.
Psalm 23:6 tells us that His goodness and faithful love pursue me every day of my life. What can His goodness and faithful love bring to me? The answer, in my dark season, was hope. There is no doubt in my mind that God provided that small (yet big) gift to me in a dark season.
Years later, I still find myself opening the jar and I find hope.
I invite the hope to land where there is a corner space of my heart in need.
Hope fills my plans for the day.
Hope hovers over a hard conversation coming up in an hour.
Hope gently nudges the anger I have for so.much.loss.
Hope sees my fear about the future and firmly tells the fear to sit down.
Hope is a Person. The Person knows how hard it was to get to Mexico, and how hard it was to leave. This Hope Person, while not bound to this earth, can use a handmade, simple candle to help me feel… loved, seen, known. And to give me renewed spirit .
What’s your candle jar? Does it hang from your mirror in your car? Does it sit at your bedside? Does it have words, or is it more symbolic? Who are the people in your community that remind you to hope? Does it feel like a miracle when hope lands in needed spaces?
I encourage you, after reading this, to do something slowly. To notice — that even when the world, our nation, or maybe even the world we’ve built for ourselves doesn’t always give us a reason to believe there is anything outside of this painful season — there’s room to lament. Light a candle. Take a deep breath. Hope is there.
