Nobody talks about how laborious faith is. How mentally challenging it is to wait for something that feels like it’s never going to come, and yet believe that it is still yours. To see without seeing. Seeing beyond sight. No one talks about the exhaustion that sometimes comes with seeing beauty where there is none. To begin again and not feel silly for surrendering to strength. To keep falling, and getting up again. Each time, being strong but feeling weak. Each time knowing that what is easy is not worth it and what is hard is worth everything. No one talks about what it’s like to hold onto hope, even as it’s slipping through your fingers. To faith-walk the staircase with no idea what’s at the top. To believe that you can see, even when you can’t. To believe you are not standing alone, even when you are. To foresight your way to the next step. To be future and present at the same time. To act according to what’s coming, and not just what is here. No one talks about the mental fortitude it takes to be patient and still and to see nothing and everything at the same time.
The trial is the mask triumph wears until we are ready to receive what has always been ours. We live in a world where faith has lost its meaning, its vigor, its gloss. Woe to those who walk the Earth when faith has lost its shine. Who are we when faith has lost its power? Dare us to believe that something we cannot see is still ours. I dare you to believe that what you cannot see is still yours. What you cannot taste is still flavor. What you cannot hear is still music. We are far too busy chasing opportunities that aren’t ours to chase, forcing connections and misunderstanding the link between pain and growth. So we miscarry our blessings because of the labor pains. Too caught up in disappointment and heartache to endure the struggle long enough to find the strength. Too physical to see the spiritual. Too impatient to wait for what has not yet come. Too anxious to see that everything we are trying to be we already are and that everything we need, is already ours.
It’s been a minute since we’ve had a No Whining Wednesday, where we do not complain, whine or criticize for a 24 hour period.
If this is your first NWW be sure to CLICK HEREto learn more about this segment. For the rest of you, welcome back!
The No Whining Wednesday Badge
We hold onto hope with shaking hands and weak hearts. It is something we fall back on in times of desperation and fear. We cry out loud for it, searching for solutions to our problems when there’s nothing left to do but wait. When things are out of our hands and we are no longer in control then, and only then, do we hope because there’s nothing left to do.
It is time for an upgrade.
Expect What You Cannot See
Hope by definition is the substance of what is expected, the proof of what we cannot see. To strengthen expectation is to begin to expect things to happen that is not yet foreseeable. To build in hope is to start to look at life, not through the lens of what is not here, but what is yet to come.
It may seem impossible that you will be relieved of Child Support or that you will get out of prison in time to see your children grow up, that you will find the love of your life or that you will be healed from that disease. It may seem impossible that you can love again after being broken or recover from a traumatic experience. It’s difficult to look at these kinds of situations, many of which we have no control, and expect things to turn out OK. It’s difficult because everything physical says that it will not. Your appeal was denied, your Child Support Payments increased, the doctor says there is no cure and your emotions won’t simmer from heartache.
All the assistance, research, history, and the data is working against you.
But, then, there is hope…
When you can expect things to turn out differently despite all the physical proof that it won’t, this is hope.
When you start to expect what you cannot see. This is hope.
Hope is expecting something to happen that you cannot see is possible but you still expect it. It is, as the saying goes, taking the first step even though you cannot see the whole staircase. You know it leads to a place. You can’t see where it is or what’s up there but you know something’s there. It is when you are willing to be uncomfortable for a time because you expect that things will (despite the “evidence” that it won’t) get better.
To upgrade the hope in your life, you must begin to expect what you cannot see.
When you change your perspective, the way you see things and the way you think about them, your entire life will begin to change.
I have something new for you guys! You’ve read my writing. Now hear me speak!
A new month is upon us and I have something new for you. I am calling it The PBS Blog Podcast:
The PBS Blog Podcast is an audio version of Yecheilyah’s blog “The PBS Blog” and will contain words of inspiration and writing tips to carry you through the week.
I am always looking for ways to add value to this blog so I am expanding my platform to include audio posts filled with inspiration, motivation, and writing tips in ways that can benefit you throughout the week.
That said, I don’t know how often these episodes will come but if you subscribe to my Soundcloud page HERE(and this blog) you are sure to be updated.
Yecheilyah is an Author, Blogger, and Poet. Her latest Release, Renaissance: The Nora White Story (Book One) is available now on Amazon:
“I must say not only did I enjoy the story, which is the first book in a series, but I, a middle-aged British white woman, also learned a little more of black American history at the same time. The author managed to weave aspiring writer Nora White’s fictional character in amongst the life and times of 1920’s Jazz age poets and novelists Langston Hughes and Zora Neale Hurston.”
