Do you have a craft closet? I do. It’s a small stuff-away-my-great-project-idea-that-got-boring-and-will-never-get-done closet in our spare bedroom. It is filled with all kinds of wonderful ideas, thoughts and new endeavors. To never be completed. There are days, when I get bored, and think, what’s in the closet today?

I dig for something new and exciting, like something morphed in there on its own. I look for a new adventure out of an old project. Maybe there’s something that I overlooked in this pile of lost hope. Nope. Same thing as yesterday, last week, last month and years ago. Unfinished life.

How did I let that closet get so filled and why in the world can’t I just let it go and purge? What’s wrong with the projects, ideas and new hope in there? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. The owner of that closet just lost interest, lost hope, found something new. Something better. To also be thrown in the closet of lost hope.

Things just get too hard sometimes, you know! And who wants to finish something that just gets too hard, boring and uninteresting?

Commitment. Follow-through. Time. That’s the invisible label above the closet. That’s the label that keeps me away. Those three words have so much, well, work in them. And who even remembers how to start back where you left off? It’s just too much.

Relationships are much the same way. Whether in dating or marriage. We find a shiny new relationship, and think, ok, I can do this, this looks simple and not complicated. But after time passes, we stuff that relationship in the closet of lost hope. It just got way too hard. It was fun at the beginning, but now it’s boring. I’ll come back to it later in hopes that it can be magically renewed.

If you ever revisited one of your unfinished projects, you know how hard it is to pick up where you left off. You have to figure out what the project was first, where you stopped and how to start again without messing up too much. It’s almost harder than when you began it in the first place. Now there is extra work, extra commitment and lots of grumbling. Let’s just put it back!

If you have stuffed your marriage in that closet of lost hope, it’s time to revisit it. I promise, it’s going to be the hardest thing you have done, possibly ever. The work it will take could be unbearable at times. It will seem like there is no point, and it is just plain-old too hard.

When you revisit that closet, don’t just cover up the struggle with pretty paper and hope that will be enough. It will just end up right back in that closet. Don’t let your grandchildren one day find that unfinished project in the closet and wonder why was it was so hard to finish. It looks so easy.

Don’t revisit the closet alone. Look for help. Find a trusting friend or family member that is open and unbiased to your marriage situation. Someone that has been there, that knows the struggle and how to persevere. Look to your church, a counselor or a relationship coach. Take one day at a time. One step at a time. That project may have been in the closet for years. It won’t be easy or completed overnight.

But when you finally do open those doors and work that old project, rebuild that broken relationship, that closet of lost hope will now feature a new label.

Hope. Future. Accomplishments.

You will be able to display your magnificent creation for all to see. You will be proud of how hard you worked to stay focused to accomplish something so tender and true to your heart.

Now that you finished, you will be able to help a friend that struggles with the same closet of lost hope. You can help her mend what is broken. Fix what seems unrepairable. Glue back the love into her life.

Rediscover joy and love. Hope and peace. The future.

You can do this!