A Vision and a Journey

A VISION AND A JOURNEY – HOW IT BEGAN

In January 2016, my friend Cindee and I began the most extraordinary journey, gifted with a vision too large to believe. Yet who would willingly doubt the Creator of the universe? Our hearts were broken for the millions, yes, millions of people with chronic illness, and also for the one utterly without hope. We cried, we prayed, and we took the first step, wondering all the while what two broken women with significant chronic illness could do to change the world?

THE JOURNEY

As we took that first step on the path set before us, we faced questions, uncertainty, and challenges. Some days we crawled, but every day we moved with all the willingness we could muster — and doors opened, miracle after miracle, so many that it quickly grew less about the shock of the miraculous than about a deep, abiding trust in the One for whom all things are possible.

That April, we became an officially sanctioned 501(c)3 non-profit — no small accomplishment, but God was just getting warmed up. He was helping us to understand the scope and magnitude of our assignment.

Since then, we’ve posted daily encouragement across multiple social media platforms without missing a day. We have a website presence, guest bloggers, an occasional guest photographer, and a monthly subscriber newsletter. We launched the Ambassador Initiative, which grew into our first fundraiser.

God has been at work in so many ways. A vision and a journey — who could have known what God would do?

COMMUNITY

Perhaps the most significant outcome (and the one that touches my heart most deeply) is community. For many of us with chronic illness, feeling alone or isolated is more profound than the health issues we face. Community is vital to learning to thrive in a life with chronic illness.

My dearest friend, Cindee, wrote a remarkable Bible study to help bridge the gap between the loneliness and isolation of chronic illness and the gift of doing life together in community. Discovering Hope is a labor of love, yet unless it reaches the hands of those who need it, it is simply one more book —beautiful words tied neatly together.

From the beginning, with our hearts utterly broken, we’ve understood that hope is the beginning, the first, necessary, life-changing step in a life with chronic illness — hope and trust in the God who chooses to use two broken women. In just eight months we founded a ministry and published a book!

We are two very ordinary women, equipped by an extraordinary God. His love for us and for each of you is so profound, so intense, and so utterly remarkable that He will go to any lengths to reach each one – one by one by one – who needs Discovering Hope.

Regardless of our abilities, skills, talents, ingenuity, time, or energy, we are learning that what God wants done, He’ll get done — every single time.

Gracious Heavenly Father, bless each one who journeys toward radical hope and compassionate change in the pages of Discovering Hope. Draw them closer to You, the source of all love, grace, mercy, and hope. Amen.