Hope. It is the fuel for our lives. Without it we become depressed and lifeless. Have you ever been without hope? Even for a day, or for an hour or two? Maybe you have lost your retirement savings or maybe you have been through a divorce or even lost a child. Perhaps you have had one or both parents die.

There is a black tunnel where all hope seems gone. It feels like it will last forever, but eventually we may come out the other side and slowly find a new place to live, a place that can even be enriched because of what we have suffered.

I have spent over 25 years walking through my healing journey from childhood abuse. Throughout, I have always known inside that I ultimately had 2 choices. I could get bitter. Or I could get better.

Another woman shares some of her story in from the book called A Holy Longing. After she tells of being raped by her father at age 9, she says, “my whole life really ended then.” When her father died, she tried to make her peace but could not.

“The older I got the worse it got. I ended up getting angrier and angrier…I began to fight everyone… It’s unfair to have to live in a world that is so unfair… I’m so full of cancer inside. I’d like to scream, just shout to the world how unfair it all is, but I know that nobody would hear—or care! I want my life back! I wasn’t born this angry. I don’t want to die this angry.”

The author goes on to say that “some of the happiest people in the world have been abused and some of the most unhappy ones have been. The difference lies not so much in extent of the trauma of the original abuse,” but how we come to think about ourselves and the world around us as a result.

As I child, I had no one to talk to about the things that were happening to me. There was no relative, no neighbor, no teacher who could tell me that what was being done to me was not my fault. I had no idea that there was even such a thing as a safe person or safe place.

My healing path has been a challenging one. But for every tear I have cried and every bit of pain I have walked through, I have stored up a new inheritance for my children.

Every time I heal more I give them a gift. I tell them that the way my family did things was wrong, and my own anger and control did not bring life. I own my own pain and I apologize, and every time I do, I open the door to a new, better way to live for them. They still must choose to walk through it, but I give them a new option.

I can never reclaim what was stolen from me as a child, but I can make a bright future. Now, as a life coach and spiritual director, speaker and writer, I offer a safe place for others to heal. It is my passion to encourage and inspire others in their journeys. Not just abuse survivors, but everyone who suffers.

We have choices to make in the midst of our pain…everyone of us! We can become bitter, or we can get better. Avoiding our pain will make us bitter. Getting better means facing our pain -grieving our losses. Only then can we become free to thrive…free to be ALL we know we were made to be.

I am thriving, and I know you can too! As we choose to lay down the weapons of our self-protective control and embrace the reality of our pain, we can learn to let each other in and give and receive the love we all so deeply long for. And for that, I have a great hope!