For His Glory: Hope's Faith Journey- Part 2

Hi friends! On today’s Draw Near to Me post we will begin part 2 of Hope’s faith journey. Before we get started, I wanted to share one of my favorite stories about Hope. It happened when we were outside preparing to build a mud hut kitchen for a woman in need. As our team looked out at the sky, we saw dark clouds rolling in. We said, “It looks like it is going to rain.” Hope smiled and said with all the confidence in the world, “It is not going to rain because I said it will not!” A few minutes later the rain started coming down. We looked at Hope and teased her by saying, “Hey Hope, it’s raining!” She was not bothered at all. Instead, she threw her arms out wide as if to embrace the rain. With a big grin on her face she exclaimed, “I love the rain!” I think that little story portrays who Hope is. A person with joy in all circumstances. To become the person she is today came with much hardship; however, we can begin to see glimpses of God working behind the scenes. We continue now with part 2 of Hope’s story. Enjoy!

While I was in high school, I fell into a deep depression. I was popular in school, but I didn’t understand how that was the case. When the depression hit, I didn’t know who to talk to or who would even believe me. I felt like I was going crazy. Outwardly I put on a facade that I was happy and everything was great. I was an actress in high school and I pulled it off; however, inside I was really dying.

There was one person who somehow understood what was going on with me. It was my high school headmaster. For some reason he liked me a lot and not in a creepy way. Every day he made sure to find me and ask if I was okay. I didn’t really understand why. Some days he sent a student to get me out of class and bring me to his office. My headmaster made me sit there and asked me how I was doing. I was like, “I am fine.” He replied, “Is there anything that you want to talk about?” I’d say, “Nope, I’m fine.” There were so many times I wanted to tell him what I was struggling with, but I didn’t know how. I also didn’t want him to think I was crazy. It went on and on like that.

On many occasions I was so depressed that I wanted to take my life. Yet each time I thought about it I got scared and decided not to. One day I was really struggling. I was done with life. I had a plan. At school there was a two-story building that was not fully finished. It was still functional and used for classes. It had a big wide veranda at the top and big concrete stones at the bottom. That day I decided I wanted to jump off it and end it. I was ready to do it, and nothing was going to stop me.

I don’t know why or how, but my headmaster called me to his office that day. I was so mad at him for stopping my plan to jump. I really wanted to do it. Of course he had no idea what my plan was.

The headmaster said to me, “I don’t want you to think I am creepy or anything. I don’t have any bad thoughts or ideas about you. I don’t know why, but I care about you as if you are my daughter. I just hope that if you are going through something you know you can come and talk to me.” Over and over, he asked me if I was okay. I just said, “I don’t know.” My headmaster made me sit in his office for 3 hours that day. After that he kept a watch on me. I am pretty sure he had other people also watch my back as well.

Around that time my sister became very sick and was in terrible condition. She went to the hospital and wasn’t getting better. Sometimes she just passed out. We discovered that it was due to witchcraft coming from my dad’s side of the family. They were still coming after us. My mom ended up taking my sister to witchdoctors trying to save her life. It was a really, really messy time.

From there life got worse and worse. I felt like I was going crazy. Growing up there were so many things that happened to me that I never told anybody. I thought I had to just take it, be the strong one and protect everybody’s feelings. I needed to find a way to cope.

To find relief, I began to go outside in the compound where our house was located. It was there that I talked to the stars in the sky. It was my way of venting. It started because one night I looked at the stars and they seemed to be smiling at me. I randomly told them everything that I felt. It was comforting because I felt like they were listening. They were not telling me I was crazy or laughing at me. For some reason I felt they were talking back and encouraging me, so I made it my routine. Every single night I would go outside, lay down on the grass in the compound and talk to them for hours. It was a comfort that I had during that time.

As teenagers, my sister and I were best friends with David, one of our neighbors. His father was a pastor at the church and David often invited us to go with them. Sometimes he also invited us to go and sing. Since we liked music we told him, “We can come and sing, but we aren’t joining.” The truth was that I did not want anything to do with God. I still thought He hated me. I hated Him too. At least I thought it was a mutual feeling.

One day, my sister became so sick that I thought she was dying. In fact, my mom called me that day and told me that they thought she had died, but she came back to life later. I was really sad. I didn’t know what to do. I was so pissed and angry about what was happening.

That day I was sitting on my bed at the boarding school when one of my classmates approached me. Although we weren’t friends, we had a good relationship. She came to me and said, “Hey Hope, you know what? Jesus loves you.” I said “What?” The way she said it as fact made me mad. I went off on her and told her, “Oh, Jesus doesn’t love me. If He loved me my father wouldn’t have died. I wouldn’t have suffered through all these things and my sister would be fine.” As I was going off on her, she calmly looked at me and said, “You know, you’ll see.” I was so mad. I thought she was crazy or something.

Even though I had no relationship with God, I still had friends in my life that believed in Him. I had some Protestant friends that prayed every day in the morning and evening. A lot of times they invited me to come and pray with them. I told them, “Nope, I’m good. Do whatever you want with your God, but I don’t want anything to do with your God.” They kept inviting me and I kept giving them the same response.

The day I thought my sister was dying, I was so pissed about the circumstance. My friends said, “Come on, let’s pray for your sister.” I finally said I would do it to get them off my back. I wanted them to leave me alone. I quickly shut down any hope that praying would actually do something for my sister.

We first started with a lot of worship. I already knew many of the songs because we sang them in choir at the Catholic church. After we finished singing, they prayed. The entire time they prayed I was basically mentally mocking them, but then something happened. After all that prayer I somehow experienced peace that night. It was interesting and unexpected.

I joined my friends again to pray because I liked the good feeling I had afterward. Then, the more I started praying with them, the more this fire began building inside of me. I felt an internal desire to know Jesus. I tried so hard to shut it down. I kept telling myself, “Nope, that is not happening.”

To be continued.

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