“Uh-oh,” she said, as she realized what had accidentally happened as she reached for the fragile, plastic flower.

Toddlers don’t realize how easily things can snap in two……………

and just like that……………

Hope was broken.

Maybe that’s what Paul meant when he penned the words,

“Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer.”

Romans 12:12

He knew what we all eventually learn.

No matter how much hope we have,

No matter how much joy we feel,

Affliction comes.

Life hurts.

People disappoint.

Situations overwhelm.

Hope breaks.

I’ve felt the snap of my own life flower being ripped from its stem.

I’ve faced the pieces of what once was,

the shattered glass of a once-perfect family photo.

My hope has been broken…………

more than once.

But I’ve learned a lot along the way as I’ve studied the remnants of brokenness.

I’ve also sat with many women facing their own piles of rubble.

And one thing I know for sure,

Broken Hope Is Still Hope.

I feel excited inside when I realize there’s absolutely nothing that can separate me from the love of God.

God, who holds all things together, holds together my forever broken hope……..

He is the glue.

He is the transformer of all my pain.

He is the resurrecting power in all that has died around and within me.

He makes all things new………..

even broken hope.

I’m nearing the end of my Marriage and Family Therapy Program.

Two more classes and I’ll walk across the stage or at least receive my diploma in the mail.

I’ve driven several thousands miles on this journey………….

miles in my car and miles through my heart.

This degree has been so much more than a continuing of education for me.

It has been, and continues to be, God’s way of showing me what it looks like to live an abundant and full life in spite of an incredibly broken hope.

I just completed one of my big assignments for my current class –

My Personal Change Project

I had to choose an area of my own life that needed professional help and become my own counselor,

assigning homework,

setting goals,

and facing one of my own issues.

As I wrote my way through the past eight weeks,

I began to see my brokenness as the very part of me that makes me whole.

It was, and continues to be, the painful gluing back of all my fragmented parts that allows God to keep showing up.

I can’t survive without Him.

I need Him like a broken plastic flower will forever need glue to properly bloom.

My broken Hope is the only Hope I ever want,

because my broken Hope reminds me that I am incapable of handling life alone……………

and that’s okay.

I don’t ever want to hide the glue lines piecing my life together,

because those cracked and somewhat uneven places are the very places in my story that make me strong.

Your broken places are no different.

Invite God into your life and let Him be your glue.

He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.

Col. 1:17

Broken hope is still hope, because He is there.

And I am forever thankful for my broken Hope.