Finding Hope in the Hard

Today I'm celebrating the podcast hitting 1,000 downloads. A huge milestone made possible by the Lord's grace and your friendship. Thank you for joining me on this journey. 

I also get a bit vulnerable, and share some of the wrestle that I've been walking through in the last year. In the darkest times, in the depths of my despair, Hope has still poked through. And that is the faithfulness of Jesus. Reading Psalm 130, seeking the Lord, experiencing His forgiveness and cleansing...and the encouragement of friends and family... all of these things have taught me (and continue to teach me) that even the tiniest beam of hope in darkness changes everything. Because that hope is Jesus Himself. 

Scriptures Referenced

• Psalm 130
• Philippians 1
• John 1
• The Book of Job

You can find me on Instagram / Threads

Transcript

Carrie 0:07

Hey everyone, welcome to a new episode of Honey from the Rock. I am so glad you're here, and I am looking forward to seeing what's gonna happen in today's episode. Because right now, people, I'll be really honest with you, I have no idea. Um, usually when I sit down to do an episode, I've got an outline, I've got scripture, I've got, you know, just things that the Lord has shared with me, or he, the, you know, the Holy Spirit is so faithful to bring situations to my mind where he's taught me things, where he's led me through suffering, where he's taught me in affliction, where he's taught me in discipline, he's taught me by his love, all of those things. And today I have been asking the Lord the last few days what he wants me to talk about. I've been looking over different verses and scriptures where I'm doing Bible study and things that I've just been noodling on and haven't felt a real clear sense of the Lord's direction.

Carrie 1:05

What I did feel like I needed to do though was to be faithful to sit down in my chair and put my headphones on and get my microphone fired up and just start talking to you. And so that's what I'm going to do today. Um, before I dig into, I don't even know. I have I have Psalm 130 up, but we'll see, we'll see how the Lord leads. But before I go any further, I wanted to share some really exciting news. Um, and I posted it on social media last week that I finally I I say finally, like I don't know, I hit 1,000 downloads on the show, which I am so excited about because it means that there are people who are coming here each week and they are listening. And it's just really encouraging to see that, you know. I mean, even a marathon episode like last week's, which was the longest episode I've ever done. I mean, good gravy.

Carrie 1:59

Um, but I I just want to thank each and every listener, um, my weekly listeners who come back every week um and listen uh to the podcast and people who pop in and out, um, or even if you've only just listened to one episode and maybe it's today, I don't know. But just this this podcast is is something that has sat on my heart for many, many years, as I said in the first episode, and to hit a thousand downloads and to get into the routine of building the podcast and doing the episodes and making it just part of my life is huge. It's it's just such a blessing to um to really walk into something that I know the Lord's calling me to do and that he's brought his people along to listen to it. Um, that I've gotten messages, just an encouragement talking about how it's ministered to people. It's just huge. So I just want to give a moment, uh, take a moment and give all the glory to the Lord and to just perfect profusely, I can talk today, it's fine, but profusely thank you for being on this journey with me. And I'm looking forward to some of the things that I really feel like the Lord um is challenging me in, and and some things that I'm going to change or start doing in addition to just the audio. So there's a little hint, and I know I've dropped hints about Bible studies, which I am also working on those, and um I just I it's it's overwhelming as I sit here and think about, you know,

Carrie 3:48

I've I've mentioned quite a few times that 2025 was definitely the hardest year of my life, and there was just a lot of grief and a lot of pain in it. And to see that the Lord has been so gracious and kind to me, and that so many of you who have listened have been the hands and feet of Jesus to me, and some really difficult things has just been overwhelming in the best way. And this podcast, you know, like I said, people have told me how much it encourages them, and it's been an encouragement to me. It's been part of what the Lord has used to help heal and um minister to me, you know, the act of remembering, like I talked a few weeks ago, talked about a few weeks ago, sharing uh my story, some of my story with you all. And just looking back on my life, and even though there's been a lot of difficulty and there's been a lot of things that I have walked through with Jesus that have broken my heart and caused me to wrestle with him in a lot of areas, he has been faithful every step of the way. And so I just want to thank thank you all, and I want to thank the Lord for being so kind and gracious and for coming on this journey with me. And um, so yeah, I'm just so excited. I love a thousand downloads, and we'll see what the Lord does in the future. But for now, I'm just so thrilled with what he's done.

Carrie 5:20

Um, you know, I there's a podcaster I listened to, her name is Megan Ashley, and she had several episodes um about a year and ago, maybe a year ago, maybe a little bit more, but just talking about giving the Lord your serious yes. And, you know, I've I've walked with the Lord for a lot of years, and um, and he's he knows he has my serious yes, but there have been areas that he's called me to that I've I've been afraid to fully jump all the way in, and and doing a podcast was one of them. And part of that was timing. You know, I don't think that I could have done this show the way that I've done it um at any other point in my life, but uh the other part of it was fear. There was some fear that that held me back, and so finally deciding to overcome that fear and hit record and share with you all and just to follow Jesus in it has been amazing. And so I wanted to share that update and like I said, just thank you all for being such faithful listeners and being such good friends. And I know so many of you pray for me and pray for my family. Um, and I just can't, I just can't thank you enough for your faithfulness um and your kindness as the body of Christ.

Carrie 6:40

So with that being said, I actually want to kind of follow all of that up with um, like I said earlier, I've been praying and asking the Lord what what to share today. What do I share? Because because in the midst of dealing with grief and and dealing with loss and walking in some very painful areas in my life, you know, I've had a lot of ups and downs, a lot of wrestling with the Lord. Um, and as I sat down tonight and turned on my microphone and just kind of stared at the screen, you know, waiting, waiting for the Lord to lead me in some direction, the question that just kept coming to my mind was what would I say to somebody if they sat down and and shared with me where they're at and it was my story, you know, just the grief and and the difficulty of the last year. Because uh one thing I've seen in my in myself is having gone through things that are that are difficult and having gone through some difficult suffering and pain, I I tend to adversely react to platitudes. I mean, I don't know anybody who loves a platitude, I'll be honest with you about that, but I think there are things that have crept into our Christian vernacular that have become platitudes because at one point or another they're they're true.

Carrie 8:20

Maybe what somebody is saying to us is true, and yet at that moment it's it's like I these are these are all the things that I know. I know these things. I know that the Lord is faithful, I know that he's gonna carry me, I know that he's gonna do this or he's gonna do that. And I don't know about you, but sometimes I feel the frustration of like, but I just sometimes I just want to sit here and I want to acknowledge that this stinks, you know, this is hard. And um, and and fortunately for us, we have a whole book called Job that has a man in a situation then that probably a lot of us can't imagine, um, not only losing his whole family except for his wife, but also then getting boils all over his body and just the misery that he was in, um, that we can have those honest conversations with the Lord to say, Lord, this is hard and it stinks. And as I was thinking about that question, you know, what would I say to somebody if they sat down and shared their story with me and it was what I've walked through the last year?

Carrie 9:25

And as I was thinking about that, because, you know, one thing I've been trying really hard to do for Lent is to not scroll on social media, but I had saved a few things that had caught my attention. And one of them was a post by Preston Perry, and he was sharing some pictures from his life, and and he said, Um, life has been hard, but what if the hardness is actually not what you think it is? And what if you're looking at it from the wrong perspective? And that question really hit me. And all of a sudden, I'm like, Lord, I have been saying a lot, and and and and a lot of people would probably say to me, rightfully so, that this has just been really difficult and things are taxing right now, especially emotionally, and that um, you know, considering the the loss that my family has faced in in the last year, that it's completely understandable uh to acknowledge just how hard and crappy things have been. But when I read that question from Preston, it was like the Holy Spirit stirred something in me.

Carrie 10:40

And all of a sudden, I'm like, Lord, I think I need to stop saying how hard things are. And that in and of itself, it's very difficult because a lot of things just feel very overwhelming. However, you know, it was like sharing with you guys that my podcast hit a thousand downloads and I got emotional about it because in the in the difficulty, there has been a lot of beauty, there has been a lot of goodness, there has been this sweet aroma of the Lord's faithfulness in in my life. And so as I sit here today with you all, and I think about where I was almost six months ago when I hit record on this show, and you know, October 4th, that was when I did it. Um, I look back even in that in this last six months, and I see, I look at my own life. I look at what I've wrestled with, you know, crying out to the Lord, asking when suffering's going to end, asking him just to take some of the pain away sometimes. And in the midst of it, there has also been a lot of beauty, and I'm seeing it's I'm seeing some of the beauty that the Lord wants to bring out of this.

Carrie 12:13

And so, in all honesty, if somebody sat down and shared their story with me and it was what I've walked through the last year, I wouldn't know what to say. I wouldn't I wouldn't know where to even start. And yet, as I sit here and I think about everything that the Lord has done, I would I I would I would want to encourage I would want to encourage that person, whether it's you or it's me, that even in the heart there is so much hope. And you're gonna be up and down. And there are days you're gonna be so angry, you're not gonna know what to do with it, and days where your heart is so broken, and yet you just think that if you cry one more tear, you're just gonna lose your mind because you get so sick of crying. But in the midst of it all, what keeps you going is that there is so much hope in the Lord. And even in the depths of your despair and your depression, in in the midst of your lack of understanding and and the brokenness of your heart, you know that nothing is wasted in the hand of the Lord. And there are times when that's not incredibly comforting because the pain is so overwhelming.

Carrie 13:44

But when when that cloud passes and and just that little bit more of healing comes, you just start to see, you know, I said it to a friend a few weeks ago, like it just takes a pinhole, it takes a pinhole of light to make the darkness not dark anymore. You know, it's what John tells us in in John 1, the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not understood it. And so I just want to take today, this episode, and encourage you that it is it is not wrong to hope. It's it's it's okay. It's okay to wrestle. It's okay to let the Lord know how difficult something is. But even above that, to remember that there really is hope. That in the midst of things that you just can't imagine that you would ever be able to walk through, that Jesus is actually there, and he is actually real, and he actually loves you, and he cares about what you're going through, and his heart breaks for his kids, that the father really, really desires to see us live in freedom, and and though freedom often brings pain because there's there's pain in healing that he he knows better than any of us. The pain, the pain that comes in healing because of the cross.

Carrie 15:37

And so, friends, I don't know what you are facing. I don't know what you're walking through. I don't know what you're crying out to the Lord for. I don't know what you're waiting on him for, but I want to encourage you today. I want to encourage you today. And I didn't expect it this when I sat down to record, like I said in the beginning, I had no idea what I was gonna talk about. But don't don't lose hope. Don't lose hope even when it is so hard. The Lord is He is truly so good, and He understands He understands the depth of our pain. And he wants to minister to us and He wants us to know Him. And, you know, I mentioned earlier that I have Psalm 130 pulled up, and as I'm sitting here trying not to cry, doing a very poor job of it, I'm reading it, and I am so appreciative of the honesty that's in scripture and the honesty that's in the Psalms. Because Psalm 130 is um it's like a story, it's like two sides of the same coin. And it's really short, so I'm going to read some of it to us. And I pray it encourages you. I pray that as I read it, it doesn't feel like just another piece of scripture that, you know, or just another platitude, because it's not, it's the word of the Lord, and even in our struggle and in our wrestle, the word of the Lord is powerful, and and Jesus ministers it to us because it's the very substance of who He is.

Carrie 17:33

And so Psalm 130 says, Out of the depths I have cried to you, Lord. Lord, hear my voice, let your ears be attentive to the sound of my pleadings. If you, Lord, were to keep account of guilty deeds, Lord, who could stand? But there is forgiveness with you so that you may be revered. I wait for the Lord, my soul waits, and I wait for his word. My soul waits in hope for the Lord, more than the watchman of the morning, yes, more than the watchman of the morning. Israel, wait for the Lord, for with the Lord there is mercy, and with him there is abundant redemption, and he will redeem Israel from all his guilty deeds.

Carrie 18:16

And I just I love just to read that. With the Lord there is mercy, and with him is abundant redemption, and just the the determination of the psalmist to wait for the Lord, to wrestle with the Lord, and he's you know, he's wrestling with the Lord in his sin, and we all need to be wrestling with the Lord and in our sin and dealing with those areas where the Holy Spirit is convicting us. But friends, in the wrestle and in the fight, even when we're just so tired of fighting and we're tired of that wrestle, there is hope, there is mercy, the Lord is moving even when we can't tangibly discern him.

Carrie 19:03

And so I would, I'm I just want to encourage you today, if you are feeling like life is just so difficult and you are stuck, or you are wrestling with big questions with the Lord, and you are trying to figure out what he is doing and where he is with you, or you are grieving the loss of family or friends or dreams or a job, wherever you find yourself today. Preach the gospel to yourself, and I will do the same thing. That we can acknowledge the difficulty of what we're walking through with the Lord. We can be honest with him about that. And we can also determine that we are not going to fall down into the pit. We are we are going to hold on to hope. We are going to wait on the Lord. You know, Psalm 27 says, We will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. And that has many applications, but there's room for an application of it here in this life that we can see his goodness here. And and and David wraps up that psalm with, therefore, wait on the Lord.

Carrie 20:13

You know, so yeah, I just I want to thank you for walking with me on this journey. I want to thank you for your encouragement, and I want to encourage you to keep hoping in the Lord. Don't give up, don't listen to the lies whispered by the enemy that want to creep in and and steal the truth of the Lord from you. Want to challenge his character and want to put us in a place where we we don't believe that the Lord cares anymore because it's not true. The Lord cares deeply for us, he loves us deeply. And and staring down the face of Palm Sunday, this coming Sunday, and then Easter next Sunday, more than ever.

Carrie 21:07

Just seeing, seeing the depth of the love of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit for us, the lengths that they have been willing to go to not just redeem us, not just save us from hell, but to bring us into union with them, to know that we can walk with them and we can we can experience their love and their mercy. We can experience their kindness that leads us to repentance, that the Lord finds us in the place that we're at, and he loves us and he meets us in our sin. But in his goodness and his kindness, he desires to conform us to the image of his son. And sometimes that is really, really painful, and he knows it. He knows it, but he is not a harsh taskmaster.

Carrie 21:55

So, my friends, today I would encourage you to read read Psalm. 130 to sit and and meditate not only on the goodness of the Lord in forgiving us and cleansing us from our sins when we come to him, when we have a broken spirit and a contrite heart, but also that he offers us hope, that we can in waiting on him and in wrestling, wrestling on the narrow way of this faith, you know, embracing the cross that's appointed to us, that that we can we can walk in hope, that there may be struggles, we may face ups and downs, but but we can we we hope in the Lord and his coming is as sure as the dawn. He will never leave us, he will never forsake us. He loves us, he cares for us, he wants to use us for his kingdom, but above all of that, he wants us to know him. He wants us to know him, and he wants us to grow in deeper revelation of his character, deeper trust of faith in walking this out.

Carrie 23:08

And and when we're facing difficult things to wrestle faithfully forward and not give in, not give in to the lies of the enemy and the whispers of our own hearts and minds that want to convince us that the Lord is not for us. It's not true. And and we can we can walk in expectant hope. We may not know how the Lord is going to bring something to fruition. We may not know how he's going to work out things in our life that look so impossible. And we don't know how he will move in situations that feel like there's just no resolution. But friends, it's happened in my life before, and I know it's happened in the lives of many of you. There have been things that have happened in our lives where where people turn around and they say, Nobody, nobody could have done that but the Lord. And just know that I I pray for every listener, even if I don't know name, I I pray for the people who listen to this show. And I thank the Lord for you.

Carrie 24:34

Friends, the Lord, the Lord is working. The Lord is working. As many characters in one of my favorite series, the Chronicles of Narnia, say in the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, Aslan is on the move. Aslan is on the move. And you know, Jesus may not be safe the way that we crave safety and surety and all of those things, but he is good. He is good. He's the king, I tell you, as Mr. Beaver says. So I pray this blesses you. I pray it encourages you. You have blessed and encouraged me, and I thank the Lord, my God, on every remembrance of you today, my dear friend who's listening, all of my dear friends who are listening. Let's hope in the Lord. Let's wait for his word. And let's remember that with the Lord there is mercy and abundant redemption. Amen.