Still There IS Hope

Bit by bit she’s dying.  You can see it in her face, and her eyes…. She’s but a mere skeleton. Her mind is losing its ability to reason. Her own lies have clouded her reality to the point she can hardly tell truth from fiction and not a single believable word escapes her lips.  Her beauty is gone. So is her husband: even her children. Her vehicle is destroyed; her house stands empty… no power, no water, no garbage service, and her rent has been unpaid for months…  If she goes near her mother’s house, someone will call the cops. Most of her pals are used up and burned out. The ones still hanging around are as miserably messed up as she is. She is afraid to be alone at night. She finds herself preparing meals for the kids that aren’t there in her sleep; sometimes hallucinating and always afraid of drug dealers showing up to demand payment.

Yesterday her friend died of a heroine overdose. Someone, who, like her, had recently been celebrating her recovery from a drug addiction; someone way too young to die. Is she next?

I can’t really tell if she resents my urgings to get help. She seldom answers my calls, but she will respond to some of my text messages on occasion. Usually she tells me what she thinks I want to hear… that she’s going on a certain date to the local treatment center and that she’s just waiting for an open bed.  It’s always a week away  - never today.  She lives only for the present moment. She is in complete denial of the fact that she’s dying. Slowly, but surely she’s dying.  I can see it in her eyes.

I tell her I love her. I tell her that God loves her. I tell her that He sees her as she might be, not as she is. He’s just waiting to relieve her of her pain and suffering and He wants nothing more than to bring healing into her life. 

But no one can force her to make the choice that would change the direction in which her life is hurtling.  I feel helpless and incapable of doing anything to stay the tide… Everyone does. She is still alive, though and where there is life, there is HOPE. We are still praying; praying for a miracle and always looking for an opportunity to show her Christ's love. Sometimes that looks like tough love.

I'm sad. Please pray for her because there is still hope.

“The love that is inspired by our love for Jesus

will see in every soul, rich or poor,

a value that cannot be measured by human estimate.

 Let your life reveal a love

 that is higher

than you can possibly express in words”.

6T 279