Lost

Therefore, we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.

2 Corinthians 4:16-18

I have spent months in a place so deep and dark that I did not think I would ever find my way out. It has been cold and lonely and there has been the sound of silence echoing all around me over and over. I had finally found myself at the very end of my rope and had totally lost hope in everything.


How does this happen? How do you get to such a dark place and not even realize you are headed there? For me, it was a slow process but I clearly remember waking up one morning and being surrounded by darkness. Of course, it was not actual darkness but was the darkness that comes with loneliness and complete emptiness. I have spent months feeling my way around in the dark looking for some way out but have had no success. Now let me clarify and say that in my complete loss of hope, I did not lose hope in Christ but instead lost sight of Him. This feeling of being lost made me realize that I looked to people for direction and support instead of the One who truly knows me and knows my every need. This is how it all happens. This is how we lose our direction. We make people into gods, which in turn take our eyes off the One who should be our direction.

This can be a scary place to be in when you feel like you have nowhere to turn and you have yet to realize what has actually happened. You truly find yourself standing in a room filled with people who love you and you are standing in the center screaming at the top of your lungs for help but they all look at you and smile as if nothing is happening.

As Christians I feel that we have this tendency to get lost in our own agendas and we sometimes forget to love and minister to those who are in need of it. We tend to focus on the unsaved and embrace them where they are but forget that even those fellow believers around us have times of pain and hurt and true turmoil but we can miss it. When this happens, and you are the person needing help, you can often times find your world turned upside down because suddenly nothing makes sense anymore. Things you once thought were true no longer seem true anymore. It is a painful and lonely place but there is hope and I have finally found that faint light at the end of the tunnel that is leading me out.

The exciting part is that now that I can see a faint light, there are also shadows, shadows of those who have been there all along that I was unable to see before but are there now who are pointing me in the direction of the light ahead. Suddenly things do not feel as cold and there is a warmth to the light ahead that is pulling me outward to where I need to be again. It is surreal and comforting and I know that once I finally get to the end there will be a peace like I have never known.

Right now, my life is not perfect. It is a huge mess all over the floor, shattered into a million different pieces but I have this most amazing Artist who is waiting for me to hand Him every piece so that He can put it all back together and create what He knows my life can and will be when my eyes are set back on Him. He is waiting for me to lift every one of those pieces back up to Him so that He can create a spectacular masterpiece through His mercy, grace, forgiveness and love. Only then, will my life be turned back into something that makes sense and is useable and only then will I be renewed and complete and His fingerprint on my life will be truly evident.