In Desperate Prayer

I fell to my knees beside my bed and prayed for rescue. I begged God for help, confessing my weakness and the sin in all I had done. I poured out my fears on weeping tongue and laid my troubles before Him. "Oh God of Mercy, help me," I cried. "In your great Love, hear me!" My plea was all my heart. Exhausted, I gave in to anguished sleep.

In a dream, I saw a silent angel standing nearby, sentinal to my cause. He was a warring angel, not burdened by emotions such as mine.

Present to defend me, I knew he was capable. He was not there for me to worship, but for me to understand that I was not alone against my enemy.

The fight was greater than my own. I saw that it had little to do with circumstance. The war was in the heavens. That which came against me was manifest proof. I was to trust God, the Creator of my being. I knew this by insight in the place of dreams. without language spoken.

When I woke, the anguish was gone; the fear, dissipated. And the dream stayed with me, not to be forgotten.

Never Despair

We all walk a path through the maze of life. Sometimes we feel desperately alone. The woods about are dark and haunting. We often feel we don't know where we're going.

This has been very true for me. It's at times like that that I stumble, even fall and hurt myself in one way or another. Despair seems easy. Like a child who whimpers over a bruised knee we comfort ourselves in despair by justifying all the wrong that has left us alone and in the dark.

How many times I have felt this way! Countless days and numberless years, I have felt like a lost child in a dark forest, unable to see the sunshine, unable to get a bearing, alone with no understanding of which way to go.

Then one day, because I'm a writer, I set out to study story-telling. I decided maybe that was the way to go, that if I learned to tell better stories, I'd one day be found and my books would have greater influence, greater meaning. I was right!

I was surprised as well, because what I plotted in my understanding of story became a map for my own life. An angel appeared on the trail beside me and above to give me insight and encouragement. God let me know that I was on the right track, that the direction I was heading was correct. All I needed to do, He said through this angel of light, was "continue on and do not despair!"

When I looked into what He meant, for I meditated on it long, I realized a most valuable thing. I realized that despair itself was a dark power ruling over me and that when I cast it off by disclaiming it and chose joy instead by praising God, not only did the darkness leave, but the trail opened up. I found my direction. I saw the way.

This, then, is the first step in our journey. Lay down all your indulgence in negative justification. Trust God. Press forward. He created you! Can there be a mistake in that?

No. No mistake. So shed the darkness, child of God. Disclaim it. Proclaim your birthright. Praise God and think on all things good. Throw away all that which is not. That's the first step on your way out of the woods.

Our Direction

In the long tunnels of time, we stumble, trip and faulter. We strive down wrong paths and open dark doors. We mis-use and abuse relationships along the way, failing to see that damage to another is damage to ourselves.

Welcome to The Hope Stone. This is a blog about creativity; but not in the more commonly thought sense of creating art. Though I am an artist, as is my wife--you'll see samples posted periodically--this blog is not directed toward the creation of artwork, but rather the creation of one's life.

Sometimes, it feels like we're living in a movie or a book. I talk to many people who comment on this in one way or another. "Oh, let me tell you my story," or "I could write a book," they say, but they never do. They are living lives both fantastic (not always positive, but sometimes) and usually without direction, letting it happen to them rather than directing its course. If a movie director or publisher were to look over these life scripts, in many cases, he would toss much of the plot into the river because the script for most says nothing and goes nowhere.

I'm creating this blog to discuss, and hopefully hear comment about, how a person can establish a direction in life, set an image far off on their horizon that will benefit them (and others--because that's required) and reach it.

Hence: The Hope Stone. Sound interesting?