Barbara Higby - I Was Broken, Too: Four Paths to Restore Battered Hope

2019 Barbara Higby

I was Broken, Too

Four Paths to Restore Hope

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Scripture quotations marked THE MESSAGE are from The Message. Copyright by Eugene H. Peterson 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2000, 2001, 2002. Used by permission of NavPress. All rights reserved. Represented by Tyndale House Publishers, Inc.

Scripture quotations marked NKJV are from the New King James Version. 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Library of Congress Control Number: 2019932501

ISBN 978-0-310107552 (Paperback)

ISBN 978-0-310107569 (Hardbound)

ISBN 978-0-310107576 (eBook)

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This book is dedicated to the One who restores hope,
to the broken whose hope is battered,
and to my husband who walked with me on these paths to hope.

N ana, youre pretty nice for an old person. The ice cream scoop in my hand froze mid-air and I slowly turned to lock eyes with the nine-year-old. I didnt speak but my expression must have said volumes because Noah immediately began to backtrack.

Pacing, hands fidgeting, he tried again, Its not that youre old. Its just that youreyou knowyoure in between adult and elderly.

I handed him the bowl. Eat your ice cream, Noah.

This is the same grandson who told me why he loves coming to Nana and PopPops house: Its like the Garden of Edenwith marshmallows!

I may have marshmallows, but as an adult who has endured much (and is not yet elderly) I can assure you that I live in no Garden of Eden. The losses Ive suffered would not be found in that sinless paradise and Im sure the pain you have endured would not be there either.

If we sat together and shared stories, our specific circumstances would differ but we would find our struggle for hope to be the same. Disappointment, offense, and pain have marched into our livesuninvited invaders. They vandalized our joy and devastated our hope. At times they crept in softly, but often they blatantly barged their way in. However they entered, they broke through our protective doors and wreaked havoc. The despair that accompanied them caused hope to falter and eventually fade, leaving us to wonder if we will ever recover.

Fading hope is like fading lightit darkens our surroundings. We dont choose to go to this dark place, but neither do we choose to not go. Lifes 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 cant see a way out and the prominence of our problems obscures the hand of God. Its a shadowy, murky place to live. I believe this is where the widow of Zarephath lived when Elijah found her.

At one time, love flooded her heart and her infant sons smile all but overwhelmed her. There were no bounds to the happiness she and her husband shared. Indeed, they felt honored to be blessed with a son. As they watched their child grow, each stage of development thrilled them with fresh wonder.

Her maternal heart beat with unquenchable joy, until the day it didnt. Until the day her husband left her a widow. Until she found herself poor and defenseless. Until famine ravaged the land and she watched her precious son waste away. Until she had nothing but a handful of wheat and a little oil. Her joy was long gone by then. Hope had vanished. She shuddered at what she saw in her futuredeath by starvation for her and her son.

Perhaps thats why, when the prophet came to town and asked her for a cake, she prepared it for him, using the flour and oil that was intended for her and her sons last meal. What difference did one meal make when there was no hope for a next meal? Had she given up? Or, did she feel a reverence for the prophets God? Did the God she likely did not know instruct her heart to respond? During the preparation of that final meal, did the widow feel hope flicker?

She alone had been approached by Elijah. When he saw her gathering sticks for a fire, she was the one he asked for bread and water. She weakly explained that she didnt have any bread and the sticks she was gathering were to cook a final meal for her and her son. Elijahs next words must have sounded absurd. He said, Dont be afraid. Dont be afraid of starvation? Dont be afraid for tomorrow? Dont be afraid of death? Lurking fear had usurped her hope, as it does ours, and the prophet exposed it with his simple statement.

Elijah continued, Go home and do as you have said. But first make a small cake of bread for me from what you have and bring it to me, and then make something for yourself and your son. Did he know how irrational that sounded? If she first made a cake for him, there would be nothing left to make another. But she did not have time to puzzle over the impossibility of his request because Elijah was still speaking.

He said, For this is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: The jar of flour will not be used up and the jug of oil will not run dry until the day the Lord gives rain on the land.

We do not know if her obedience was out of resignation or hope, we only know that she did as Elijah told her. I would love to read her thoughts. Could she have believed what he said? Was there reason to hope? There was nothing to lose when she was already one meal away from starvation. But she didnt starve. Miraculously, there was food every dayfor her, for her son and for Elijah. The jar of flour was not used up and the jug of oil did not run dry.

You and I understand personal famine. We have experienced decimated joy and shriveling hope. Who of us wouldnt want to experience a miracle of that magnitude in the midst of our desperation?