Hope, Continued

     After yesterday's posting, I remembered writing about hope long ago in what became the book, Crisis Survival Rations.  I'm going to share that Ration with you here, because God's truth is as true now as it was in 1996 when I wrote the first draft during a crisis in my life.
Remember your promise to me, your servant; it has given me hope. Even in my suffering I was comforted because your promises gave me life...My sufferings, Lord, are terrible indeed. Keep me alive, as you promised.  Psalm 119:49,50,107
     When external pressures and pain bury my hope right now, I can rekindle my awareness of that hope by immersing myself in your promises.  Hope truly does give me life. What I hope for is what I live for. It keeps me alive, even when I feel like I am being buried alive here.  It is an oxygen mask of resuscitation to my suffocation. I will re-visit the promises of God that have comforted me in other times, so that I will have renewed vitality and an oxygen mask in this airless place.
Spirit of God, fill my collapsed lungs with your respiration. I cry out for your breath in my near-lifeless soul and spirit. Only you can fill me, only you can minister to my deadness with you rekindling Self. Only you can heal the parts of me that are dragged down, and crushed, and cut off from air. Take me as limp and battered as I am in this wretched place and bring me to where you want me to be.