When you are the hope

"Oh don't worry! She is going to be fiiiine. She has you!"

Sigh.

I was exhausted. Emotionally spent. I had caught myself several times that day simply standing in a room, staring blankly while wringing my hands. I hadn't laughed in days.

I was burning out fast.

I was on the brink.

The intense emotional turmoil inside my daughter had begun to overwhelm me. I was doing everything I could to hold her together, and she was still falling apart.

When I confessed my discouragement and fears to friends their responce was all the same. "Wow that sounds so difficult. But she will be fine, she has you!"

This was not encouraging to me.

When you are the hope,

you become hopeless.

Because if I am the hope,

then I know we are doomed to fail.

Because I know my own limitations.

I see the failures.

I see the shortcomings.

If I am the hope,

then we are all doomed.

If I am the hope

we had all better give up now.

Good thing I'm not the hope.

He is the hope.

My hope remains on God, the healer of all who chose to look at him.

The protector of all who take shelter in his wings.

The Light in the darkest of nights.

He is the hope.

And when I take a breathe and acknowledge this true Hope,

I can laugh again,

I can stop wringing my hands,

The weight lifts,

My mind can clear.

Never again will I fall into the trap of believing that I am the hope for a hurting child.

Because mending a hurting heart is beyond my ability to heal.

So instead I trust in the Healer of All.

And in the process,

I too am healed.