Lovely Letters: Hope For Your Heart

After all the pain I experienced, I feel like I have lost hope. Maybe I threw it away, maybe I let others steal it, it doesn’t seem to matter anymore either way. I guess I just want to know… how do I get it back?

-H

H,

I’m soaking in this quiet moment. The air has turned chilly, the windows and doors of our house are open, our sweet dog is stretched out on the rug and one of my housemates is playing the piano.

My heart is full and it’s been a long time since I’ve felt that way.

I don’t know what exactly made me get to this moment, but I think it started somewhere after I decided to be thankful.

I know where you are. A lot of things have been hard for me recently. For a really long time, they’ve just been really hard and very painful. 

But I’ve just decided to start being grateful for the good things, even if they seemed small, the moments where breathing is easy and life is quiet. I have started being grateful for coffee, sunsets, strings of lights on the porch, my favorite cereal, phone calls from friends, movie nights, laughter, flannel shirts, firm handshakes and bear hugs.

Gratitude has brought hope back to my heart. I’m not sure that there was ever another way (and trust me, I’ve tried everything else). I prayed for new things, then for old dreams, and then for absolutely anything to resurrect this heart of mine.

Nothing happened.

It was then that I decided to start being content with what I already have. Now, I’ve started noticing the beauty in the ordinary days, in the moments of laughter with my housemates, sitting around the table with friends and talking about grace and the changing of the seasons.

Hope has returned. Beauty and excitement were resurrected in my heart because I chose to see that they have always been near.

Even in the pain, the heartache, the tears and the questions, there were always things worth smiling about and worth pausing to admire. There is beauty in the place you’re in, H. If you’ll just take a minute to step back and look around, there are things that will pull on the strings of your heart and at the corners of your mouth. Your lack will start to look like abundance, if you just take a second to be grateful for the goodness in each day.

Things aren’t ever going to be perfect. You’re never going to have literally every single thing you could ever want. But you’ll realize that you have what you need, things that are beautiful and life-giving.

Hope hasn’t left you, H. It’s still there, in the beauty of orange leaves, bird lullabies, brave moments and people who make your heart skip. There may be things you don’t have, but just start taking note of all you do have and I promise the good you will see will multiply.

These words won’t make your problems disappear and they aren’t going to change the things that have happened to you, but you know what? You deserve so much more than a life spent holding a magnifying glass over the pain and the heartache. Pull your head up, H and stop staring at all the broken pieces scattered on the floor.

We both know they are there. I’m sure that when it all crashed and shattered, the sound was terrifying and the chaos was devastating. I imagine it made you feel like you could never get what it takes to sweep it all up and put it back together.

Stop trying to glue it all back together. You’re meant for more than sticky, sloppy, shabby pieces stuck together in attempts to look like what they used to be. 

You deserve new, unbroken, whole things placed in your heart. You still have plenty of good things inside and there’s more coming. Be grateful for all that remains and keep believing that more beauty is on the way.

Ashlin

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I WANT TO HEAR FROM YOU!

Lovely Letters is a series that happens every Wednesday (well, at least once a week)! I’ve gotten such an amazing e-mail response from many of my readers and I try to respond to as many as I can directly; and some of them have inspired me to share thoughts and ideas on my blog. You guys seriously inspire me and what you’re going through is universal and I think other people need to hear that they’re not alone.

So… if you’re interested in inspiring the next Lovely Letters post, send me an e-mail and let me know what’s going on in your life. I absolutely love hearing from all of you!

E-mail:  ashlinkayh@gmail.com

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