life – Page 2 – Erin Ulerich

What Does Fighting For Hope Look Like?

When I go running, this hill is my nemesis. It really shouldn’t be called a hill, because “hill” is a pleasant word. This land feature is a specimen of suffering, whose purpose is to inflict pain. It steadily inclines and curves so that when I think I’ve reached the top, I’ve really just hit the bottom of the next incline.

Sometimes I hit this hill with gusto. I lean into the incline and focus on making it to the top. Sometimes I walk up the hill, enduring the incline and reminding myself that I can make it to the top. If I sprained my ankle on the way up the hill, I would painfully hurple up the hill. As long as I keep moving forward I know I will make it to the top.

The way I tackle this hill looks a lot like the way I fight for hope. Sometimes I fight for hope by pushing back the darkness, strong and warrior-like, with a victorious war cry. Sometimes I move slowly forward, whispering against the darkness, enduring the battle, hoping it will end soon. And many times I hurple. Last week I hope-hurpled as I ate a container of chocolate icing while writing about hope. Speaking truth to myself is good. Stress-eating on chocolate… yeah, that’s a hurple.

But no matter how I fight, with the war cry or the whisper, and even with a chocolate covered spoon in my hand, I am still fighting.

Each time you and I choose truth over the lies of the darkness, we are fighting for hope.

We fight for hope when:

We order a salad at Wendy’s instead of the #1 Combo super sized with everything fried.

We speak truth.

We file for divorce after years of manipulation, affairs, abuse.

We do something that scares us, like audition for a musical, or run a 5K.

We set a goal of losing weight and move toward that goal one meal at a time.

We don’t give in to despair as we walk with a loved one through cancer.

We believe God can bring beauty into hopeless circumstances.

These are just a few of the ways I’ve seen Hope Warriors in my life fight for hope. These are all completely different, but three truths form the foundation of each decision:

I am worth fighting for.

I don’t want to live numb anymore.

This battle will change my life and the lives of those around me for good.

Fighting for hope looks different for everyone. It can also look different for the same person in different moments. That’s why the guest posts in this series are so important.

Sharing our stories is powerful. Sharing our stories awakens the courage, compassion, and hope that is inside each one of us. Seeing someone else fight for hope shows us that the fight is possible for us as well.

What Is Hope?

What is hope?

Sometimes it is crossing our fingers and wishing for the best. Or it is what we feel as we move toward a goal step by step.

But that’s not the hope I picture when I say the words fighting for hope or when I call people Hope Warriors. The hope I picture is a quiet, fierce strength deep within. This hope is not fueled by good intentions, or determination, or the power of positive thinking. Instead, this hope is grounded in God’s nature and character.

We are drawn to hope, our hearts crave hope, because we were created by the God of hope. He made us for hope, He gave us the ability to hope, and He is the source of lasting hope.

And lasting hope is what we need when we push against the darkness in our lives. Lasting hope is bigger than we are, because it is grounded in God.

If God is the basis of lasting hope, we can experience this hope through knowing Him. We come face to face with Him in His Word. Through the pages of the Bible we read what He says about who He is and how much He wants to know us.

“Hope is the sense of expectancy and optimism that God wants to instill in all of us who love him and have faith in him. It’s an overriding confidence he gives, reminding us that, even in the midst of our greatest problems, God is still with us – and he is greater than any challenge we might face.” Lee Strobel, The Case for Hope

What is hope?

This type of hope is our anchor as the storms of life swirl around us, when there is no script, and we aren’t sure what to do. This hope whispers truth when our heart doubts God’s love. This hope reminds us of times when God provided for us. This hope is proof that we are not abandoned or thrown out, because God is with us always.

This hope gives us the strength to fight.

Why Fight for Hope?

I was doing just fine until I read The Healing Path by Dan B. Allender.

Wait…that’s not true. At all.

I was running from my story, really. And this book said things that made me turn around, face my story and own it. In the midst of facing my story, this quote spilled across the pages:

Hope is by far one of the most dangerous commitments we make in life.

I’d never thought of hope as being dangerous.

I’m not really a fan of danger. I can’t even stand the suspense of hide and seek.

This video describes my reaction to danger.

Not brave, not courageous, just a total flip-out. You can ask my children. They love re-enacting times when I’ve completely lost it. It’s not enough to tell the story, they want others to fully experience it. They are true Southern storytellers.

But this quote makes me rethink my aversion to danger. This quote makes me feel a bit wild and unpredictable as I push against the darkness in my life and yell (or sometimes whisper) “You will not win!”

Why is fighting for hope important? Why would anyone step willingly into danger’s path?

Because we have worth.

Right now, as I write this and as you read this, these words are true: We have worth. You have worth. I have worth.

We are more than our abilities. We are more than our struggles. Our worth does not come from our looks or financial status. Our worth is not determined by a lack of looks or financial status, either.

We have worth because we were created by God, who calls us worthy, who breathes life into every soul, who calls us beloved and precious. We are not a random bunch of cells that happened to group together and form a person. We are loved tenderly by God, who also says that we are worth fighting for.

We are worth the fight.

Because we weren’t meant to live life numb.

During difficult times, my first response is to build a cocoon around my heart to keep from feeling the hurt. We all have ways to cope with the fact that life is messy, confusing, and unpredictable. We distract ourselves in video games, TV series, and books to keep from dealing with life. We over-do good things: stay too busy, eat and drink too much, or shop too much. We even turn to harmful things like drugs, porn, gambling, cutting, or purging to keep us preoccupied and numb. The list goes on and on and the end result is the same.

We are miserable because we weren’t made to live like this.

We were made to feel. We were made to fight for things that matter. We were made to live in this broken world, to walk through the difficult times without being hardened by them. It is through the battle that we develop perseverance, courage, and compassion.

We were made for hope.

Because no one else can fight in our shoes.

We live in a broken world with hopelessness crowding in at every turn. Our news feeds are filled with tragedy and sorrow. Despair is a normal response to what is going on around us, but I believe people are looking for a different response. When others see us facing the darkness in our lives and yelling (or even whispering) “You. Will. Not. Win.” they see that despair is not the only response.

I am convinced that God places us strategically in families, in friendships, in relationships, in communities. And these spaces need Hope Warriors. I look at my own marriage and our struggles, my kids and the things they face, and I know that God has placed me right here to fight for hope. The same is true for you, my friend.

Why fight for hope? Because the last chapter has not been written. As dark as things seem, God can and will work in the situations you and I are facing right now. And when we choose to fight for hope, we are participating in the bigger story He is writing in this day and time.

Fighting for hope is dangerous. It’s also contagious. Our lives, our stories – even the chapters we don’t like – impact those around us.

And the more I fight for hope, the more I suspect that there may be a badass deep down inside of me. One that doesn’t flip out at the first sign of danger, but one who owns her story with style.

When Lies Seek to Ruin Us

I cry whenever my children perform in talent shows. I can’t help it. I am so proud of them. It takes courage to perform on stage and I want to encourage my children to be brave. This world needs brave people.

But when my son wanted to dance in a talent show, I wavered. After all, I know the gene pool he comes from and there aren’t many dance-y genes in there.

What will the other kids say? I thought. What if he gets laughed at?

He persisted, undaunted by my wavering, and he danced to Axel F (my ’80’s heart was proud) and the crowd clapped and cheered and laughed in the places where they were supposed to. He loved it, and he experienced the thrill of trying something new.

And I cried as he danced. I cried because I was proud, but I also cried because my fears almost kept him from having this experience.

In a recent talent show, a spunky 10-year-old girl ~~played the drums~~ ROCKED the house on the drums. She definitely had talent, but even more, she enjoyed every second of playing those drums. She didn’t perform, she radiated.

And I cried while she played. An ache swelled in my heart as questions filled my mind. When did I stop finding joy in the things I’m good at? When did I get so insecure, afraid to try new things, afraid what others would think?

I can trace this fear back to lies I’ve believed over the years. Lies like I’m not good enough, my efforts won’t make a difference, it’s better to keep things the way they are, that change isn’t worth the effort.

These are lies I believed for far too long.

I hate lies. I hate they way they paralyze us, they way they eat into our souls, they way they cripple and maim.

I hate the lies that curl around my daughter’s heart, trying to take root, whispering in her ear, You are a nobody. You are useless. You are helpless.

I hate the lies my husband hears, You are a failure. You will never change.

There is no end to the lies we hear. You don’t deserve good things, You don’t matter, What you think doesn’t matter, You can’t make a difference.

Lies are powerful and if left in the dark they will take root and grow stronger until we eventually accept them as truth.

So what can we do? If we focus on the lie, even to argue against it, it grows stronger. The way to fight the lies is to change the playing field and focus on truth. As truth seeps into our hearts, the lies lose their power over us.

The truth really can set us free.

For years three major lies controlled my life. These lies were just under the surface of my heart, influencing the way I viewed myself, the way I viewed God, and the way I believed God viewed me.

I found freedom as I listened to truth. As I began believing truth I found the freedom to begin living bravely, courageously, and honestly. Instead of being paralyzed by fear, my heart grew strong enough to begin fighting for hope. And in the midst of this journey I scribbled my thoughts on paper. These thoughts became a 31 day series called Truths That Make Life Beautiful, because that is exactly what they did.

These truths changed me. You are loved. You are not alone. You have purpose.

When we feel unloved, alone, or useless, life is dark and filled with struggle. When we believe lies, beauty is hard to find. But truth has a way of bringing fresh air as it chases away the darkness.

Truths That Make Life Beautiful

You are loved. You are not alone. You have purpose.

Silencing Shame By Fighting For Hope

My family loves watching American Ninja Warrior. My ten year old, Maggie, is on a first name basis with her favorites. I love the determination, the skill, and the strength of the competitors.

But most of all, I love their stories.

Flip Rodriguez, a competitor from Miami, Florida shared a part of his story and revealed a strength far greater than required for the obstacle course. He took off his mask, literally and figuratively. He brought a secret out into the light. He told the world that he had been sexually abused from the ages of 9-15. In a few short minutes he shared an extremely difficult piece of his story and then reached out to others caught in the same situation.

Before the show aired, he wrote on Instagram, “My story will finally come out to the world. One of the hardest things/ nervous times of my life. To let everyone into my world and what I’ve been through. In hopes of helping others that are going through it. To show you that you’re not alone in it. Just cause you’re in a situation doesn’t mean you have to stay there.”

He pushed through the shame, and in doing so, he lessened the shame others may feel about speaking up.

Shame is a fungus . It flourishes in the dark, covering us with its lies. Shame separates us from God by convincing us that though God’s love is real, it isn’t meant for us. Shame works overtime to make sure we feel alone, and that we stay alone. Eventually it convinces us that we are alone.

Brene Brown defines shame as “the intensely painful feeling that we are unworthy of love and belonging. She says “Shame corrodes the very part of us that believes we are capable of change.”

And Flip Rodriguez stared shame in the eye when we wrote “Just because you are in a situation doesn’t mean you have to stay there.”

He is fighting for hope and, by opening up about his past, he is reaching his hand across the gap to help others step out of the darkness of abuse.

His words on America Ninja Warrior were powerful. He communicated truth: This is not your fault. You are not alone. He offered empathy and understanding. and shame cannot survive where empathy and compassion are offered. Brene Brown explains it this way:

“If you put shame in a Petri dish, it needs 3 ingredients to grow exponentially: secrecy, silence, judgement. If you put the same amount of shame in the petri dish and douse it with empathy, it can’t survive.”

It can’t survive. Empathy and understanding bring our shame out of the darkness and into the light – where hope can grow.

People are amazing. The way they fight for hope, even when things look and feel hopeless. I believe people do that because we are wired for hope. We were made for hope because we were created by the God of hope. This God of hope who takes the broken and messy and says to the darkness What you mean for evil, I will use for good. And that is the war cry of the Hope Warrior.

Hope warriors are not people who have it all together. They are not people who give surface answers to the messiness of life. Hope warriors are people who know their own brokenness, who aren’t afraid of the brokenness they see in others. They are people who say “I am with you. You are not alone.”

Whether or not he wins America Ninja Warrior competition, Flip Rodriquez is definitely a Hope Warrior.

Our world needs Hope Warriors. Our world needs people who cling to the beauty of redemption, because there is so much that is broken.

We Can Trust Him, Because of Who He Is

Life is hard to figure out.

In a session at a recent writing conference, Kaylan Adair, editor at Candlewick Press, spoke on middle grade novels.She defined them as stories where the characters stick their foot into the adult world for the first time. They are on an exploratory mission and don’t plan to stay. In these stories, the character discovers that life is complex and complicated.

There are days when I wish I lived in the chapter before the beginning of a middle grade novel – where life is easy to understand.

In reality, we live in the midst of layers of life, where things are happening simultaneously around us, to us, and by us, while we try to make sense of it all. We tend to default to a formula where our life experiences shape our definition of who God is and whether or not He loves us.

Good things happening=God is good and happy with us. Bad things happening= God is bad, weak, or mad at us.

This formula looks simple and easy to follow. But life can’t be lived through a formula. Life is complex and complicated, a mix of joy and sorrow at any given moment.

God is constant and unchanging, and life around us swirls in chaos.

Instead of letting our life experiences shape our definition of who God is and whether or not He loves us, what would it look like if we let who God is and His love for us shape our definition of our life experiences? It’s more than playing around with words. The difference between these two is the difference between hope and despair. I’ve experienced it in my own life.

When I was in 8th grade my grandfather died of a heart attack. I had a vague notion of who God was but I had no idea that He was with me or that He loved me. I felt alone and my grief was dark and hopeless. That same year a friend from school committed suicide. Again, I swam in dark and hopeless grief.

Years later my grandmother passed away after a horrendous struggle with cancer. At this point I had a closer relationship with God. I struggled with her suffering. I pleaded with God to take away her pain. I yelled at God and wrestled with the complex truth that He loved her and He was allowing her to suffer. But it was not dark and hopeless because who God is was my filter. My grandmother was his precious child. He loved her even more than I did. He was getting her heart and soul ready to spend eternity with Him and He would not let her suffer one second longer than necessary to accomplish that.

If I had interpreted who God is through this difficult circumstance, the logical conclusion would have been that God was either helpless or too cruel to alleviate her pain. However, the truth is that God’s greatest desire for my grandmother was for her to know Him and He loved her enough to do whatever was necessary to accomplish that purpose.

What made the difference in these two reactions?

Trust.

I filtered my sorrow, my anger, my frustration through the filter of who God is. I searched His Word to find out about His steadfast love, His faithfulness, His being with His people. And I clung to who He is as we walked through this battlefield of cancer.

The more I know Him, the more I trust His steady, constant Hand in the midst of the constantly changing circumstances swirling around me.

If your eyes are on the storm
You’ll wonder if I love you still
But if your eyes are on the cross
You’ll know I always have and I always will – Casting Crowns, Just Be Held

Picture by Angela Ewing — *Photo by Angela Ewing*

Even When We Feel Helpless, We Are Not Alone

We sat in the school hallway with 30 other people, waiting for the tornado.

I tried to keep conversation light to mask my own worry. Anderson played a board game nearby with a friend. Maggie watched Frozen with a group of girls huddled around a tablet screen. But Ellen stayed by my side and asked the hard questions.

“Is the tornado close?” she whispered. I put my arm around her as we leaned against the wall. “It’s about 10 minutes away. You don’t have to worry. We are in a safe place. We are in the safest place we can be. ”

“Will it hit us?” She asked.

“I don’t know, sweetie, but we are in a safe place if it does.”

“Mama, do people die in tornados?”

In the 25 zillion parenting books I’d read, not a single book had a chapter on Speaking Truth During Tornados. I was not going to lie to my child, and yet I didn’t want to multiply her fears.

“Sometimes that happens, sweetheart. But we are in the safest place we can be right now.” I kept using the word safe hoping it would make her feel safe.

The wind howled. The rain pelted. And my husband walked past us, a grim look on his face. Ellen and I watched as he wrapped an extension cord around the handles of the double doors at the end of the hallway – the doors that could fly open if a tornado hit.

I felt the muscles tighten in Ellen’s little body.

“Are we going to die?” she whispered, her voice trembling in my ear.

Fear. Pure fear.

These circumstances were totally out of my control, and my child knew it. She immediately felt alone and helpless, and I could identify with that.

It is not unusual to feel alone when we feel helpless.

God knows what it is like to live in this broken world. He knows that we will face circumstances that we can’t change or control. And He knows we need Him to remind us that we are not alone.

Do not fear, for I am with you. Isaiah 41:10

His Word gives us assurance of His presence. We are not alone, because He is with us.

I did not want my child to feel alone, because we were not alone or abandoned.

The truth was that the tornado could hit. We could be injured or die. And God would still be good. He would still use it in our lives for something beautiful.

But how could I explain this to my 6 year-old who was gripped with fear, when I don’t even fully understand it myself? I’ve seen God bring beauty from bad things in my life. I’ve seen Him work in people’s hearts through the most difficult and horrible circumstances. I don’t understand it, but I trust His hand.

I pulled Ellen into my lap, held her, and said, “I’m not sure what will happen. But I know that God will do what is best, and I trust Him.”

The tornado went over us without touching down and Ellen and I whispered prayers of thankfulness for His protection.

God did protect us that day. But even if He had allowed the tornado to hit, it wouldn’t have been because He took His Hand away from us. As His children, we are secure in the palm of His Hand. He is with us.

I’m still not sure how to convey this complicated truth to my children. Maybe it’s enough to teach them to trust Him, because He is with us, even when we are sitting in the dark.

Have You Been Introduced?

The way we meet God seems backwards to me.

We are introduced to God through someone else. It’s amazing that God trusts this introduction to us, especially when we are so likely to misrepresent Him. It’s really an important introduction.

Our introduction to God is important because the way we view God and the way we think He views us are important. What we believe about these two questions influence our life: “How do I view God?” and “How does God view me?” Our answer to these questions determine our reaction to God’s words of “I am with you.”

I know people who are convinced God is out to get them. I know others who keep God at a distance because they are sure He looks at them with a disappointed frown. These people might say that God is good, loving, and forgiving, but their life shows what they deep-down, really believe. They don’t draw comfort from God’s words of “I am with you” because they don’t believe that God is for them.

I don’t remember my very first introduction to God. I remember the Gideons coming to our school and handing out New Testaments, I remember going to church with my grandmothers when I was younger, and I remember Sunday School at their churches. I remember going to retreats and lock-ins with my friends at their churches. My mother took us to church when I was in middle school, which was the first taste I had of being part of a community. I have no doubt that the seed of faith was planted and watered in the midst of all of these memories. And I am sure that these experiences played a part in me seeking out a relationship with God when I was in the ninth grade.

But the most in-depth, real-life conversations I had about God was with my tennis partner, Nona. I was a new believer, hungry to know God, and Nona spent time talking with me, answering my questions, and pointing me back to Him. (Just in case you don’t remember high school, there are LOTS of things happening that can make you question God’s presence, His care, His involvement in our every-day circumstances. AP Biology is only one of those things.)

We talked after tennis practice, often until dark, and the sunsets over the cotton and soybean fields were spectacular. I realize that the sun sets every night, but it felt like God painted sunsets with especially vibrant colors on the nights we sat on the tennis courts talking about Him. It felt like He painted them just for us.

I am so thankful for the way I was introduced to God. Since then, there have been other people in my life who have presented God’s holiness in a way that communicated Him as stern and distant. They focused on our sinfulness and unworthiness without mentioning the abundance of His lavish love or the bridge of His amazing, life-giving grace. I realize now that this slant probably had more to do with their view of God and their life-story, but it made an impact on me as a new believer.

God gives us the great privilege of introducing others to Him. The best introduction points them to His Word, because that is the place where who God is can be clearly seen. He is holy, and we are sinful. That is true. He is also relentless in His love for us and in His mercy toward us. His Word is more than a book. It is God’s words of this is who I am, this is how much I love you, and this is what I’ve made you for.

We find life in the pages of His Word because we find Him.

A Pearl of Great Price

I have enjoyed exploring the first truth in this Truth That Makes Life Beautiful series: You are loved.

I am so excited to be moving into the next truth that makes life beautiful: You are not alone. This truth is close to my heart, because I felt alone, and truly believed I was alone, for many years.

As I said in the introduction to this series We say what we think. We live what we believe. And I believed that I was alone. It was a belief born out of a lie that formed a chain around my heart, link by link, over the years.

I had a great childhood, surrounded by family and friends who loved me.

But I also had a belief deep down in the core of my being that I was alone. And there were situations, circumstances, that seemed to prove the truth of that belief. We live in a broken world, surrounded by broken people, and in my own broken state, I misinterpreted many things.

I wore my aloneness as an accessory. I picture it as a pearl necklace. (Y’all know we wear pearls with anything here in the south.) And each time something happened that seemed to prove the truth of my false belief, I added one more pearl to the strand.

I wasn’t aware of this strand of pearls until a few years ago when I noticed that I was reacting really strongly to situations. I was reacting as if I was abandoned. One night my husband looked at me and said, “You know I’m for you, right?” I didn’t know that. Why would I not know that?

So I went back to the beginning and looked at events that happened over the years: growing up, those crazy turbulent teen years, the early years in our marriage, and I named each pearl in my necklace. Those pearls added up to one thing. I was alone. I was alone and there was no one to protect me.

I believed the lie that because I felt alone, I must be alone, abandoned, worthless.

I began looking for truth to replace this lie. And as I searched God’s Word, I traded in that string of pearls for a pearl of great price: what God says about me (and you) in His Word.

God says we are not alone. He says it over and over in His Word. And He shows it in many different ways in our lives.

We are not alone. And that truth makes life beautiful.

His Face is Toward Us

When Anderson was in first grade he lied to his teacher. When he got home, we had a little talk.

“Each time you lie, you are putting a brick between you and Mrs. Henderson.” I told my little boy. “The more you lie, the more bricks pile up. At some point you won’t be able to see her any longer because the bricks will separate you.”

His lower lip trembled. “But I don’t want to be separate from her. How do I take the bricks away?”

“When you ask for forgiveness, the bricks will crumble.”

Anderson loved Mrs. Henderson. The next morning he asked for her forgiveness and stopped that brick wall from ever beginning.

There are also bricks that block us from a relationship with God. The bricks may be the thought that God will make us change, or that there will be no fun in life, or the idea that a relationship with God has too many rules to follow.

These bricks distract us from the real problem. Because even when God works in our heart to draw us toward Himself, we find that there is a stronger brick wall behind the bricks we’ve put up. God is on one side of the brick wall and we are on the other.

If this was the end of the story, this would be tragic. But stay with me, there is a larger story going on here.

This wall was put into place way back in Genesis, in the Garden of Eden. It was put there by the enemy to place a permanent wedge between God and His creation, to nullify His plans to love and to bless His creation.

The enemy laid the foundation for this wall by layering bricks of doubt, “Did God really say…”, and mistrust, “God knows that when you eat of it then you will be like Him”. If sin begins by our refusal to believe what is true about God, then this was the birthplace of every sin known to man.

But the enemy did not count on the mercy of God. The enemy had no way of knowing what God was willing to do to break through that wall of darkness, mistrust, and doubt. God tore down that wall through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Why would He do that?

Because of His great love for us. The love of God is shown in this, that while we were still sinners Christ died for us. While that wall was still there, before we ever searched for Him, He searched for us.

He did not create us to be alienated from Him. He made us for life with Him.

His kindness leads us to repentance. His kindness causes us to want change in our life.

His Face is toward us and all His Paths are steadfast love and faithfulness.

He answers our heart’s cry with gentleness and grace.

And he will disintegrate any layer of bricks to win your heart and mine. His love is just that great.

You are loved. You are loved!

Say it. Believe it. Live it.