Hope Renewed

When people go through the trauma, hurts, and grief of divorce, it affects their children, their emotions, their faith, and every other aspect of their lives. For Christians who find themselves in this situation there are added traumas AND added support ~ from God and from the fellowship of believers surrounding them. A new group has started meeting every two weeks at Eastridge to provide this Christian support to women in our congregation and beyond. 

The name of the group is "Hope Renewed: Support for women experiencing separation or divorce", chosen by the first fifteen members of the group in order to emphasize the strong focus on families, faith, the future, and moving forward.

God never promised us the absence of pain in this life - only the presence of His love, and the support of other believers.

If you, or someone you know, could benefit from this group, please call Lori (483-7792), or Sandy (489-5613) to find out when we are meeting next. Currently we are studing the book "One Man and One Woman."  To see information about this book click here.

Over thirty women have grown in their faith and moved forward after meeting and finding friends in Hope Renewed. Please join us. Diane Harris and Kathy Rangel have continued to provide wonderful materials and guidance for the group as Lori and Sandy are amazed at the Christian growth within the group.

Comments from members of the group:

This group has been a "God-send" to me. Roxanne

God has given me so many Christian sisters to love. Your encouraging and kind words along with your prayer are just what I needed. My faith has grown so much over the last couple of years. Dee

I am feeling blessed to have landed in a group where I feel such care and support. I have hit that point in the process where at times I just feel so lost and alone and in disbelief that the person I cared most about in the world would treat me with such disrespect. I know the pain and hurt are a part of the healing process and I will get through this. My hope is I emerge through this time of change and transition with a stronger relationship with my Heavenly Father, a greater love for myself, and the awareness that I am a good person with a lot to offer others. Lea

Read on to see the unique way Hope Renewed Group ministers to its members:

The Introduction to Job in "The Message" is awesome.

It is not suffering as such that troubles us. It is underserved suffering.

     Almost all of us in our years of growing up have the experience of disobeying our parents and getting punished for it. When that discipline was connected with wrongdoing, it had a certain sense of justice to it: When we do wrong, we get punished.

     One of the surprises as we get older, however, is that we come to see that there is no real correlation between the amount of wrong we commit and the amount of pain we experience. An even larger surprise is that very often there is something quite the opposite: We do right and get knocked down. We do the best we are capable of doing, and just as we are reaching out to receive our reward we are hit from the blind side and sent reeling.

The above explains some of what happens to us in divorce. This is how most people handle friends suffering from divorce.

       The moment we find ourselves in trouble of any kind - sick in the hospital, bereaved by a friend's death, dismissed from a job or relationship, having to dissolve a relationship, depressed or bewildered - people start showing up telling us exactly what is wrong with us and what we must do to get better. Sufferers attract fixers the way roadkill attracts vultures. At first we are impressed that they bother with us and amazed at their facility with answers. They know so much? How did they get to be such experts in living?

The words below tell so well what we do in Hope Renewed:

      Instead of continuing to focus on preventing suffering - which we simply won't be very successful at anyway - perhaps we should begin entering the mystery and looking around for God. In other words, we need to quit feeling sorry for people who suffer and instead look up to them, learn from them, and - if they will let us - join them in protest and prayer. Pity can be nearsighted and condescending; shared suffering can be dignifying and life-changing. As we look at Job's suffering and praying and worshiping, we see that he has already blazed a trail of courage and integrity for us to follow.

     In the course of facing, questioning, and respecting suffering, Job finds himself in an even larger mystery - the mystery of God. Perhaps the greatest mystery in suffering is how it can bring a person into the presence of God in a state of worship, full of wonder, love, and praise. Suffering does not inevitably do that, but it does it far more often than we would expect. It certainly did that for Job.