dandelions

I’ve never been much of a salesman. I only made my property management career last as long as it did because I switched early on from leasing to maintenance. I was all for taking something and making the most out of what I was given… but talking others into wanting that same thing? Helping them to see what it could be not just what it was?
Difficult.
I was a realist. And of the mindset that people know what they want. Or better yet, what they don’t.
For a long time I thought being a realist was the smartest, safest, way to be.

Here’s the thing about realism though.

It doesn’t leave room for a lot of hope.

Some dreaming.

Any wishes.

It just... is.

And I got pretty sick and tired of what I saw and lived without anything to chew on at night. No bubble gum dreams. No sips of hot chocolate. No princes on white horses.
Or any kind of horse, car, bicycle, cane, for that matter.
You know what I mean.


I can’t say it started with a bang – trusting Jesus with dreams. I think it probably started very small.

A dandelion.

And gradually, a few dandelions later, dreams came. My smiles lit up my pillow and I woke up to sun inside me.
My first reaction is to almost defend my realist self now.
“I am not naïve!!” With a small fist shake to the sky and turn of my head. That's the hard-won, fought for, world wisdom in me.
But then a small voice whispered, “What’s so bad with being naïve anyway?”

Naive: lacking judgment, wisdom, or experience.

Basically, kind of dumb.

But then...
I looked at definition #2 and it said this.

Natural. Unaffected. Innocent.

My heart jump roped once or twice.
Natural? Unaffected? Innocent?
And I felt, way down deep in my belly, a longing reach out.

I don’t know how God can make us both. Wise & Innocent. Experienced & Unaffected.
But he does.
Something with that whole, beauty from ashes thing. It’s just God.

Dandelion sprinkles.

And so I changed from a Realist to a Hopeful.
Oh, I know things can still be bad but more than that, I also know how so much good can come from them.


Today I was driving home from Starbucks, deadbeat tired, still coughing, my stomach groaning and ok, basically whining, to be fed, and I talked to God about the Hope Sent book. I feel supported. I hear encouragement. But where are the letters Lord? They started coming and now they just stopped.
Where are they?

And that’s when He reminded me of what a realist I used to be and how Hope was not a welcome neighbor. In fact, I would go running at Hope with a baseball bat and chase it down the street, screaming profanities and promises of a beating if it came too close.

I can’t just wave the flag of Hope and expect people will come running. Obstacles await for anyone that even glance that way. Reminders. Triggers. Feelings that we stomp so hard if it were grapes, we’d be selling a mighty fine wine. And now here I am, asking you to volunteer them out. Asking you to just give it away.
That’s a lot to ask.

I know.

And God reminded me, in order to get trust you have to show yourself trustworthy.
What does that mean Lord?
I’m not sure quite yet what all it means but I do know this.

I have to go first.

I have to trust you first. With the worst of me. With the most painful.

Even though you may be anonymous to me, you are not anonymous to you and I know how hard it is to write it down, to get it out, to make it real.

Again.

And so
I
am going to give
to you
first.

I know what it feels like to be abandoned.

I know what it feels like to learn your daddy is not your daddy and your real daddy doesn’t really want you.

I know what it feels like to have parents that are just kids in big bodies.

I know what it feels like to be touched and whispered to, and violated, when you are too small to help yourself and he’s big enough to know better.

I know that grown-ups don’t always do what they are supposed to do. They don’t always help.

I know what it feels like to watch your mom drink too much, and bring home too many men, and still love her love her and protect her until you just can’t anymore.

I know what it feels like to leave home, pack a bag, hop a bus, and sleep outside, anywhere to get away
.
I know what it feels like to crave anything, drink anything, smoke anything, kiss anyone, to make the pain stop for just a minute, just a second.

I know Rage and her friend Bitterness and her second cousin Control and I know how they wreak havoc in your brain and in your life and in your body.

I know what it feels like to have your husband tell you he’s changed his mind and walk away.

I know what it feels like to finally realize it’s my fault too and I can’t keep blaming him anymore.

I know what it feels like to be a single mom and be overwhelmed and always wondering, am I doing this right? Am I?

I know what it feels like to not be one because you’ve traded places and now he’s a single dad.

I know what it feels like to look in the mirror and see F A I L U R E mixed in with M O T H E R and self-loathing in your own eyes.

I know what it feels like to love God and church and to think somewhere, for some reason, God must have stopped loving you because the church sure did and just like everything else, it’s my fault and I am not good enough. Again.

I know what it’s like to lock the door and cover your ears so you can’t hear him yelling and drinking and yelling some more, while you pray and pray and think to yourself, this is what I get… what I deserve.

I know what it feels like to work so hard for keys and a picket fence just to have to give them back and say goodbye to the American Dream.

I know what it feels like to be lost.

And alone.
And scared.
And angry.
And craving love so bad you think you could die from it if someone doesn’t give it to you soon.

I. Know.

Maybe not everything you have been through. Maybe not each and every detail of your life. But I know mine.
And I know this.

God can take anything, any burnt ash of a life, of a marriage, of a childhood, of a church, of a dream, of a hope, of a home, of a mother, of a grandfather …
And he can make something most beautiful out of it.
But He can only do it if we let him. If we take a step. If we open our mouth. If we write a letter.
You see, God is so unlike what I have experienced in my entire life. He'll be so different from what you have experienced in your life.
He is gentle.
And He waits.
For permission.
For allowance.
For clearance.
For a Yes.
Not because He wants you to beg. Not because He is holding anything over your head. But because He knows.
He knows, Sweet Pea, what you’ve been through, what’s been done to you.
And He is different.
He is the Lover of your soul.
The protector of your heart.

The giver of dandelions.



Hope Sent the book: PO Box 3648 ramona, ca 92065 / hopesentministry@gmail.com

Hope Sent .. The Book

Hello friends,
Can I say first off, thank you so much for reading this! It is my heart. Not the heart in my chest of course. Not the one that pumps blood into my veins, but more importantly, the one that pumps life into my soul. The one that makes life worth breathing. I ask you to please be patient and take your time. I know it looks so long but in the end, worth it. For all of us.

Three years ago, I began Hope Sent Prayer Card Ministry with one idea in mind – meeting someone right where they are, in their very own home, with a tangible expression of hope and love. The idea came to me as I sat at my desk at work and chatted with another administrative assistant on the phone. I knew her husband had passed months before and so I asked her how she was doing, how her Christmas was, if she was hanging in there.

I mean, I can’t imagine.

Christmas.

Without my sweet love. Without my comfort. Without the stealer of my covers at night.

My heart skipped when she answered quietly, “I still miss him so bad.”

What do you say? If she had been in front of me I would have hugged her. But she wasn’t and so I couldn’t and I just sat for a moment, speechless.
After we hung up, I got back to work but Alice would not leave my mind and so just minutes later I spun around in my chair and quickly wrote on a yellow sticky note “Send Alice a card”.

My whole life my mom has always been a sender of cards. Cards with confetti. Cards with bows. Cards that sparkled. And always always she wrote so much in them that the words turned sideways and upside down and before long trailed along the backside, a last wave goodbye. I inherited my mom’s love for cards and all they give to the person that opens them. I buy them everywhere. I save them for the right time, the perfect person, a moment of need.
And so began Hope Sent. Not just my words written, but the love of God mixed in, the Giver of Hope, the Bestower of Grace. It’s been almost three years now. And I am touched always by the prayer card requests that continue to come in.

People submit card requests for themselves, for their kids, their fathers, their mothers, their husbands, and their wives.
What do they want prayer for? Life.

The nit and the grit of it.

Deployment. War. Affairs. Drugs. Abuse. Salvation. Loss. Death. Cancer. Divorce. Miscarriage. Abandonment. Suicide. Grief. Incest. Alcohol. Depression. Self-esteem. Hope.
Or rather.
The loss of it.

There are times I cannot speak, I cannot catch my breath enough to get the words out; my heart in a fist.
But this. This is what Jesus came for isn’t it? For the broken and the hopeless. The weak and the forgotten. The lost and the left.
And so I pray. And I write.
And I have faith in God’s promise that is given in Isaiah 55:11,
So shall my word be that goes out from my mouth;
it shall not return to me empty,
but it shall accomplish that which I purpose,
and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it.

I have always dreamed of being a writer. For as long back as I can remember, I kept journals, wrote poetry, and then began a love affair with essays. It has been an outlet, an escape, an accountability, a diary of hope, longing, future. Dreaming is not an easy thing for me. Most of my life has been spent surviving it ... who has time for dreams when it’s all you can do to pay rent, put food on the table, fold the laundry, and read bedtime stories to your kids?
I tell you.
That’s the perfect time.
My dream? A book. I had a few ideas what this book would be about and I have started many first drafts. But God told me to STOP. WAIT.

Not

quite

yet.

And so I have waited. Sometimes patiently. Sometimes with my foot tapping.
It was driving to pick up my son from school, at the most random of unholy moments, in workout clothes and flip flops, teeth possibly not brushed yet, failing to rock a sloppy topknot, when God spoke to me,

“You should write a Hope Sent book.”

Three years. Three years I have lived Hope Sent Prayer Card Ministry. Three years with an abundance of volunteers, and sometimes only one. And not one time, EVER, have I considered a Hope Sent book. So I did what I usually do when God speaks to me… I asked Him if it was really Him,
And then I asked Him why.
Oh. My. Jesus.
You are so patient, patient, suffering long, for us.
For me.
Can I get an AMEN?!?!

Then it came. Thoughts. Not complete. Splatches of it. Here and then

there

and somehow God getting his point across and I just started bawling my eyes.

All of us, so many of us, suffering, and thinking we are so very alone but we are not, we are not alone, not even a little bit. Wouldn’t it just be awesome, I mean, wouldn’t it just be God-Awesome, to read someone else’s prayer, someone else’s pain and struggle and heartbreak, that sounds pretty darn close to yours and then read the prayer that was written over it and laid before the heart of God?!?! To see the words of hope in your hand, highlight them in neon yellow, underline them in blue, and then pray them for yourself? Share it with someone you know?
I think yes.
Yes it would be so very God-Awesome.
And so here we are. Here I am. Ready to write the book.
And you, yes my dear sweet loves, YOU, are going to help.
And we are going to rock the world with love. And hope. And the peace of God.

Together.

HOW IT WORKS
1.Spread the word.
2.Mail in your prayer letter. You don’t have to sign your name or give a real address. You don’t even have to tell me if you’re a boy or a girl or how many times you have turned 29. Be as anonymous as you want to be.
3.Or you can email it. And still be fairly anonymous.
4.Wait.
5.I write the book.
6.Then I ask God how we’re going to publish it. I’m sure He already knows. He also knows a control freak like me is still learning to walk by faith and not by sight.

SOME OTHER STUFF
1.You will not get a Hope Sent card back. This is for the book only.
2.You will not get your prayer letter back either. Sorry.
3.This is not through the church or any organization.
4.You don’t have to go to church to do this.
5.I hope some of you don’t.
6.Let it all hang out. Even if you think it may shock me to the bones, God’s got this.
7.I’m praying for at least 120. Why 120? That’s the number God gave me.

Thank you. I love you. Let’s do this.

EMAIL: hopesentministry@gmail.com
ADDRESS: P.O. Box 3648
Ramona, CA 92065