Journal Entry – May, 2017 (Shortly after Bill’s death):

People have said how hard it must be for an unbeliever, because at least a believer has hope to hold onto in times of adversity. Honestly, there may be a measure of truth to this statement, but the timing of such blankets me with a heaviness of an anxiety, that is just short of rage.

Hope.

Sometimes I feel the only hope is that eventually my life will end and the torment will end along with it. Is that hope though, or a cocktail of desperation and depression?

Maybe that’s where trust comes in, when hope feels like it’s drifting–then trust stands firm.

Maybe the truth is I feel hopeless to have normalcy again, or maybe the normalcy of the new normal makes fear rise and hope fade. 

…

During my prayer time, I am not sure how I word it, but I demand from God if He is my husband, I except him to talk to me like a husband. Not a blanket response, “Oh Josie you still have His Word.” No, I expect to feel His Presence and hear His whisper to me because He is that close. 

Hopeful as I cry this into the carpet–like the chokehold momentarily releases so oxygen can enter in. Anyway, I decide to take a bath, basically my way to nap, when I think of the passage in the Bible I haven’t read yet today. It’s on Jesus being baptized before entering the desert–the passage where the dove comes down from above, and rests on him in the water.

Anyway, I’m thinking of birds and the representation of our hope of The Holy Spirit, when my phone lights up. I have a text. It is my sister.

Sis: “Not sure if this is for you, but you popped in my head as soon as I saw the dove—it’s of HOPE!”

Me: “Well, I was literally sitting in the bathtub pondering the bird that descended on Jesus at his baptism along with hope when you sent me this!”

Sis: “He is amazing.”

Me: “Indeed.”

I get out of tub, because it is creepy to converse in such places, and call her. She says that the little bird was sitting on her laundry room floor–almost unnoticeable. She has no idea form where it came. It was just laying there, as if waiting for her to find it.

I’m dumbfounded and awestruck–my heart momentarily full of hope.