Lost?

Have you ever had that feeling of being totally lost?

 
You’ve wound up on a foreign street desperately searching for the road name to try and get orientated. It can be frustrating and stressful, but usually the situation rights itself fairly quickly as you locate where you are on the map, or a kindly local points you in the right direction.

But what about when you lose yourself? Your sense of who you are? 

That feels a much more dangerous place to be. 

The days pass by but it’s like you aren’t there. You look on as life keeps happening, as though watching through cloudy glass. Present but not participating. 

You do the things. 

You show up to the lunch.

Clock in to work, type the emails, listen to the client, care for the child… 

Breakfast, lunch, dinner… get up, go to bed… it all happens (mostly). 

Nobody would know. But you walk through life as if it is happening to someone else, watching on, wishing you could find a way to participate. You try everything but you just can’tfigure out how to join in.

Most of the time you don’t notice that you are walking through life holding it at arms distance, but occasionally it hits you hard. 

Which film shall we watch? Where shall we eat? What sort of music do you like? Which outfit do you prefer?

Um… mmm… I genuinely have no idea…

What are your favourite things to do?

I HAVE NO IDEA! 

Day to day these things might seem insignificant, we all struggle to pick a good film, right? 

But maybe they run deeper. 

Who am I?

I don’t even know what I like.

Am I even really participating in life?

I have ONE life and it is running away from me.

I need to make the most of the time I have right NOW.

But it is slipping through my fingers and I can’t quite seem to take a hold of it.

For all your striving, for all your efforts you JUST. CAN’T. CONNECT. You are stuck on the other side of the glass. Present but alone. Participating but disconnected. Desperate to find a way in, but stuck.

Where do you go? What do you do? 

For me mostly these feelings and fears just bubble away under the surface. But sometimes they hit home in a devastating way.

In that moment, I’m desperate for an answer, for a reason to go on, for a way to halt the panic that wells up in my body. Where can I go? 

Where do you go?

Wrestling with this recently these words came to me…

‘We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure’.

An anchor for my soul. A rock solid, immovable, heavy, steady, huge slab of metal that would hold me in place through the storm raging in my body. Through the doubts, questions, dread. Something to put my hope in, to trust in, when unable to trust myself, even for my own sense of self.

I knew THAT was what I needed. The dread rising within, put briefly on pause, I rushed (aka checked google) to search out the source of these words.

The book of Hebrews in the ancient book of the Bible. Chapter 6, verse 19.

‘We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure’.

Oh to be firm and secure, to not wrestle with the thoughts, to have a sense of security and stability inside. Could these words offer that?

For me… I need to find an anchor EVERY. DAY. I need these words and I need the one who stands behind them. 

Jesus. Yes, a man who is known for his kindness, good deeds and teaching. 

But so much more. 

As I have wrestled and fought for life, I’ve come to know a whole other side to this man. He doesn’t just offer nice platitudes, words that sound good but have no real substance for those darkest of moments.

He offers a sure, certain, unshakable hope of freedom, life, peace, joy… forever. A hope that cannot be taken away, by anything. And this hope… it gives meaning now, to the wrestling and pain, it gives a reason to go on.

I have so many questions, I still feel the panic every day, but this anchor keeps me fixed, firm, rooted and gives me a reason to press on with each day.

His words aren’t just nice words, they literally enable me to choose life every day.

Where do you put your hope? Could Jesus be the hope you need?

Connie Keep

Connie lives and works in central London. She loves exploring this great city but is a country girl at heart. She loves nothing more than time with friends and quality conversations about this, that and everything.