Missing Diamonds and Having Hope

I may have told you about my ring before, but it's a story that bears retelling, and I feel like it's time to tell you again. Do you ever get in a funk, feeling like you are stuck in a rut? Frustrated that that you have lots of friends but still can't get someone to come over for dinner? Or your friends are in different places in their lives and schedules just don't match up? Or you are lonely and don't have close friends in this season of your life? I'm an outgoing, social person, a "Tigger" personality, and it's hard for me to deal with being alone. It usually happens when my husband is on the night shift, when I look around on a Friday night and think, I have lots of friends. Where are they? On a fun family trip, or home with their own spouse, or too tired from their own busy week to do anything. Poor me, right? Suddenly I'm telling myself I have no friends, like a moody twelve-year-old girl, and there I am, in a funk. It's a pit I just dug for myself and then flung myself into, and I ought to know better, because my history is a minefield of these pits. They are dug by moments of self-doubt, self-pity, always because my focus is on myself in that moment. How can I get out of the pit? The opposite of digging a hole would be building something up, and the opposite of keeping my eyes on myself would be having perspective, zooming out, seeing the panoramic view of my life. The solution is stacking up the memories of when God provided for me and my family, looking back through my history and choosing to see those altar moments instead of the pits. God's people used to stack stones up in a heap to build an altar in remembrance of those moments when God provided for them in an unmistakable way, so they could walk by it later and remember that God came through for them in the past and would do it again in the future. Those altars, those stacked stones, brought hope. Our pastor talked about this very thing on Sunday, confirming in my heart that I needed to share it with you. He shared Psalm 77:11-12, "I will remember the deeds of the Lord; yes, I will remember your miracles of long ago. I will consider all your works and meditate on all your mighty deeds." He also shared Psalm 37:25, "I was young and now I am old, yet I have never seen the righteous forsaken or their children begging bread." I can look back through my life and see all the times that felt frustrating or even hopeless, and remember that God came through for me and my family each time, so that we always were provided for: a place to live because a landlord agreed to accept less rent, money for bills that arrived in an envelope from people we barely knew, a job that provided for our family just in time after one was taken away, friends for our family after a time of loneliness. During a particularly difficult time in our family's history, my husband bought me a beautiful ring with my daughter's birthstone at the center and some tiny diamonds on the sides. Two days later, one of the diamonds fell out, and I asked him to take it back to the jeweler and have them fix it, since it happened so quickly. He never did take it back in, and my frustration with him gradually gave way to understanding, as I saw how much he was hurting at the time over outside circumstances, and I had to let it go. God came through for our family in an incredible way very soon after that, and we were able to sell our house quickly instead of foreclosing, a new job was provided, and we began a new life in Washington. I began to see that missing diamond not as a flaw that needed fixing, but as a reminder of that time when everything felt broken and hopeless, but we were still provided for and God sent just what we needed. That missing diamond is still my stack of stones, and I have shared that story with my daughters, with friends, and now with you to give you hope. Whether it's a time of loneliness, financial trouble, sickness, a hurting spouse, or any other difficulty, don't dig a pit to sit in. Build a stack of stones out of those memories of God coming through for you, and dwell in a place of hope instead. "Then Samuel took a stone and set it up between Mizpah and Shen. He named it Ebenezer (stone of help), saying "Thus far has the Lord helped us." 1 Samuel 7:12, NIV.