Always Have Hope

I was heartbroken to learn my husband of seventeen years secretly wrestled with a pornography addiction that began when he was just a teenager. Even more shocking was that his obsession had morphed into a physical relationship with an underage girl he met online. His arrest and subsequent prison sentence assaulted my emotions, finances, and sense of reality. With my self-confidence violently shaken and my faith in God seriously challenged, reestablishing a hope-filled existence seemed impossible. Yet I discovered when the hour is darkest, God shines brightest. Suffering may be inevitable, but we do not have to embrace it like a warm quilt on a chilly night or even enjoy wearing it like a highly polished badge of honor. We can choose to trust God in the midst of the truly awful and elect to adopt the words and attitude of the psalmist: “But as for me, I will always have hope; I will praise you more and more” (Psalm 71:14).