#296: Why Biblical Hope is Always an Invitation, Never a Demand

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Grit ‘n’ Grace — The Podcast

Episode #296: Why Biblical Hope is Always an Invitation, Never a Demand

Cheri Gregory
Do you sometimes say “no” to hope without even realizing it? Many of us protect ourselves from yet another disappointment by distancing ourselves from the very experiences God is inviting us into.

In today’s heartfelt conversation, guest co-host Danielle Grosse and I explore why Biblical hope is never a demand to “cheer up” or “try harder,” but always a gentle, persistent invitation to receive good things — at a pace that feels safe. You’ll learn to notice God’s quiet nudges, release unrealistic expectations, and rest in the hope that meets you right where you are, right now.

[Intro music]

Welcome to Grit ‘n’ Grace – The Podcast for Highly Sensitive Christian Women!

I’m your host, Cheri Gregory.

Are you tired of the overthinking, overwhelm, and exhaustion that come with being a Highly Sensitive Person?

Are you ready to stop worrying that something’s wrong with you and start understanding and nurturing yourself as an HSP?

Together, we’ll build resilience, practice self-compassion, set healthy boundaries, unlock your creativity, and learn to embrace – not fight – your God-given sensitivity.

Let’s dig in!

[Intro music fades]

Hey friend — I’m so glad you’ve joined me today!

In the last episode, I shared that I was in the midst of receiving text messages from my brother because our father was in the ER, and I was deciding whether to make the drive to southern California yet again.

Hard to believe that was four full weeks ago!

My father was hospitalized, discharged, only to be taken to the ER via ambulance the next day, and then sent home on hospice.

I was SO grateful to have a trusty new car — with all the latest safety features — to make the almost 1,000 mile round-trip drive for the fourth time in four months. (And yes, its candy apple red color still brings me inordinate joy!)

I did such a “throw and go” panic packing job that I forgot my coffee, my prescription sunglasses, and my shoes. So for the two weeks I spent with my father, I wore the same pair of flip-flops the entire time. Since my eyes are used to me taking my contact lenses out around 6:00 PM every day, I had Annemarie send my glasses via Priority Mail. And, of course, it was Starbucks to the rescue for a pound of espresso roast that I put to good use in my little electric moka pot!

It’s a bit surreal to be circling back around to this episode of Grit ‘n’ Grace after having experienced so much in such a short period of time. I’ll be unpacking some of it with you in future episodes.

But for now, I want to say that these four conversations with Danielle Grosse — whose ministry is literally called “The Heart of the Helper” — have been an example of what she likes to call “The Hope that You Notice.”

When we started recording this four-part series, I had no idea how much I would need her insights into healing and hope.

But God certainly did.

And although your specific situation is likely different from mine, I trust Dani — her words and her insights and her gentle heart — is going to minister to your heart today as much as she continues to minister to mine.

Now, if you haven’t had a chance to hear Episode 293, 294, and 295 go back and listen to those first. You’ll find the links in the show notes.

You’ll hear us mention Dani’s beautiful new book The Boy, the Boxer, and the Yellow Rose: Because You’re Never Truly Lost. You’re Healing.

Here’s what it says on the back of the book:

“This is the sweet story of a college student sent to pick up a dog for his parents, only to discover a frightened boxer abandoned in a crate left behind by the very people who were supposed to love him. The boy doesn’t walk away. He kneels, he stays, and together, they begin a quiet journey of healing neither of them expected. With more than 100 expressive drawings, The Boy, The Boxer, and the Yellow Rose is a Christian fable told with gentle honesty that explores the sacred space between pain and hope, that place where love shows up and refuses to let go. Tucked within its pages are dozens of healing truths for anyone who’s ever felt boxed in by heartbreak, loneliness, or sorrow too deep to name. If something in this story feels achingly familiar, if you’ve been holding it all together on the outside but quietly falling apart on the inside, please don’t stay hidden. You don’t even have to whisper ‘Come find me,’ because love is already on its way. It’s right here in these pages, ready to meet you where you are and walk with you toward healing.”

You’ll find the link to order a copy of Danielle Grosse’s life-changing book – or a dozen copies – at cherigregory.com/episode295, or in the show notes.

Last time, Dani shared from 1 Kings 19, where Elijah hides in a cave, searching for God in the dramatic events — the earthquake, the fire — but God wasn’t in any of them. Instead, He came in a quiet, gentle whisper, asking, “Why are you here?”

For Dani, that whisper is God’s reminder: “I’m here. You don’t need to isolate yourself. I will show you My goodness every day and fulfill My promises — your hope can rest in Me.”

Cheri Gregory
I know that you’re doing better from your injury. What does that mean to you now that you’re kind of on the other side of some of that excruciating pain that you were in?

Danielle Grosse
I catch myself sometimes saying ‘no’ to hope, saying ‘no’ to a situation that I’m not really sure how it’s going to turn out. And it can be something as simple as my granddaughter saying, “Hey, I’m taking the canoe out on the lake today. Would you like to go with me?” And there are parts of me that go, “Well, I need to wear the right boots, because I don’t want to fall. I can’t slip getting in. I need a life jacket.” And this weekend, I just hopped in with her. It was so joyful, like sometimes I think – in our anticipation of what could go wrong, or holding on to that hope, you know what I’m saying. I’m here. I’m hopeful. I don’t want to lose that.

I think the best example I have of that is right after The Boy, The Boxer and the Yellow Rose was about ready to come out, Mike and I were driving up to our son’s house, and he looks over to the side of the road, and he said, “Hey, there are boxer puppies for sale.” And I said, “Keep driving.” And he said, “What?” And I’m going through my mind, there is absolutely no way in my life I can add one more thing. I don’t need another complication. I don’t need something that’s going to set me back. And he’s like, “We’re stopping.” And I said, “Really?” And he goes, “Yeah, we can always just look,” no, you can’t. No, you can’t. And so here are these ten little box of puppies, all loving on each other and so cute and everything. And Mike says, “I want that one.” Of course, he picked the one with the biggest paws and just the big cuddle bug.

Had I gone with my first instincts, I would have missed out on this healing process of raising this puppy, kind of like abandoning some of my worries because I don’t have time to worry about myself and focus on myself anymore. I’ve got this little puppy that is, I’m socializing, and we’re getting out and we’re talking to people and, oh, you know, we’re taking walks. And I would have said no to joy, had I not listened to God saying “You might not even know this, but you need this.”

Cheri Gregory
Yeah, I love that, because one of the things that as HSPs we have is called the ‘pause to check’ instinct. All humans are supposed to have this, but we tend to have it in spades. Part of the reason is that we are constantly on high alert, and then if we’re coming out of a trauma or an injury, or if we’re in a healing season that pause to check may have, in some ways, kept us alive or kept us from further injury or further pain. At some point though, to recognize that we can’t constantly say no to everything. And Dr. Elaine Aaron, who was the original researcher for high sensitivity, she even cautions us against holding back too much, and says that that can become such a habit that we don’t put ourselves out in the world enough.

And this is from someone – Dr. Elaine Aaron is an extreme introvert; she says that about herself – if that kind of caution, don’t hold back too much, don’t become so reserved that you’re not trying things that are new, that you’re not allowing yourself to have these experiences. If the original researcher says that, I’m like, “Well, I probably need to listen to that.” And she’s not even coming into it from a Biblical world for you, she’s just saying from a practical standpoint for mental health. As a highly sensitive person, yes, we do need to take care of certain needs, to pull back and recharge and have downtime and stuff like that.

But what I heard you say is that you end up saying yes to an invitation that you might not have said yes to otherwise you might not have seen it as God’s invitation to this new way of healing. And that’s so cool.

Danielle Grosse
Don’t you think that is a beautiful description of hope is God’s invitation? To me, that is like, boom, whether it’s a new way of life or a new experience or a turn that we may not have seen, and it’s – He always invites, He never forces.

Cheri Gregory
Oh, so good, so good.

So I’m just going to draw from my own personal experience now and say that disappointment has been such a challenge for me over my life, and for many of us, it is especially because of my upbringing and conditioning to be a people pleaser. Being a disappointment to others was just so horrifying, and then the perfectionist in me – and of course, could never live up to those ideals. And so I have spent so much of my life bracing myself, like bracing for impact, and being like, “Oh no, the hits are going to keep on coming.” And, you know, “When’s the anvil gonna fall through the roof,” just expecting the other shoe to drop kind of thing, and so constantly being in high alert mode over prepared. But of course, I can be 99.9% prepared, and always feels like that 0.1% thing is the thing that happens.

And so on the one hand, that feels very real, but on the other hand, I know from experience that I can trust God and that I can hope in Him. What are the clues that you notice in yourself when you’re doing all this bracing, when you’re bracing yourself instead of trusting God and responding to his invitation?

Danielle Grosse
You know, I really think that I try to complete this sentence, and it’s very short, I anticipate, oh, and when I can define what I’m anticipating, then I know where I am on the spectrum if I’m anticipating bad things. And okay, so how do I move gently forward out of that space of the hesitation, the worry, the fear, and then on this other side, you know, I’m anticipating God’s goodness in a new way. I think that when I complete that sentence for myself, it kind of redirects me.

Cheri Gregory
That is a great tool that we can even do when we’re doing that ‘pause to check’ thing that’s so instinctive for us to have that as a kind of a litmus test to be like, where am I on that continuum? Am I anticipating something from a place of fear, or am I actually anticipating? Because anticipation is a great thing. There’s some excitement, enthusiasm to it? Oh, I love that.

Okay, so what would you say to a woman like our friends who are listening here, who wants to hope again, but finds herself resisting hope because she’s just afraid it’ll hurt too much, and just doesn’t want to feel any more pain?

Danielle Grosse
I have a hard time leaning forward and leaning into that promise that things will get better, because we can only see the destruction or the hurt relationship or what is around us, and for me, hope really comes down to trusting a place of love again. So I think maybe that first step would be finding that safe space, just a space where love will stay, where healing is possible and not everything lands at loss, like, where is that place for you? Is it in a relationship with someone that you can pick up the phone and just be super honest with? Because I really think that one of the ingredients to true hope is that connection.

And I would say, how do you gently reconnect? That would be my question to her, not one that demands, you know, ‘I’m going to have to go out and be someone other than who I am.’ If you are a very introverted person, find that one person that you can go sit on the riverbank with and drink a cup of coffee and you don’t even have to talk to, but you’re connected, and then it kind of progresses. From there, we can ask that question, “Am I anticipating with love in my heart and love for God?” And then “Who’s going to help me be that hand where I don’t have to do it all alone?”

Cheri Gregory
I love that. The idea that things are going to get better, it doesn’t necessarily mean all better, and it doesn’t necessarily mean back to the way it used to be, but that there will be healing, and that there will be progress. And at least for me, this is where looking at those expectations again.

I think I’ve shared with you I had a back injury many, many years ago, and I will just never forget how much I had to shave down those expectations, down to those little incremental steps so that I wasn’t – I hate to use the term ‘setting myself up for disappointment and pain,’ because that makes it sound like I did it intentionally, and I don’t want to blame myself, that came so naturally to me.

But I love, I love what you said about looking for that small connection and starting in that micro step rather than trying something huge. So often the women that I work with, there’s just so much optimism, and there’s so much of a desire to be like, “Okay, now I need the plan.” And they want a three month plan, a six month plan, a year plan; they want a checklist they can start checking things off of, and finding that person that you can call doesn’t involve a checklist at all. And so in that sense, it may not feel like it’s healing, it may not feel like it’s progress, and yet that connection is the best thing that we can do.

Danielle Grosse
Absolutely, absolutely.

Cheri Gregory
I love what you shared earlier about the hope that you notice versus the hope that you carry. You invite us to notice hope instead of trying to force ourselves to feel it, and I love that.

So why is it so healing for us to notice hope rather than forcing ourselves to feel it, and especially for those of us who have these tender hearts and sensitive souls?

Danielle Grosse
When we are noticing things we are seeing those small shifts that can turn into big anchors, and so I think that that’s the benefit, and hope is an anchor for the soul.

Cheri Gregory
Yeah, so now I’m gonna get personal here. What’s a recent moment when you chose to open yourself to hope, even when you didn’t feel like it?

Danielle Grosse
Oh, I think my whole summer has been opening myself up to hope. The thing that I will tell you that I missed the most when I was just really hurting is when someone would go to hug me, my entire body reacted and shut down. And I was like “Oh, okay.” And it was almost like you kind of like, held yourself, and you were like, “I hope this goes well.”

And this summer, I’ve been really opening myself up to not only just the physical part of recovery and of hope, but just getting out and doing new things and trying new things. We had a friend that was here from Scotland, and she was so funny. She looked at me and she said, “You know, in Scotland, we’re really not huggers.” And I said, “Oh.” And she said, “But by the time we leave, I’ve decided I’m gonna say, ‘Come give me a hug, y’all.’”

Cheri Gregory
I love it.

Danielle Grosse
And I think that’s been the theme of my whole summer, whether it’s the dog, whether it’s my family, whether it’s God, “Hey, I’m inviting you to feel this gentle hug in a way that you never have.” I just finally found the reason to say yes.

Cheri Gregory
Saying yes and getting re-engaged even though there’s risk involved, but the risk of not engaging is worse.

Alright, my last question for you is, how does your book – your beautiful book, I always have to put the word beautiful in front of it, because it is. How does your beautiful book The Boy, The Boxer and the Yellow Rose invite readers to hope without demanding it?

Danielle
When we look at animals, they’re so empathetic. We can look at a horse, you know, we’ve talked about horses being some of the most empathetic animals that there are, and how they respond to gentle control, right? We don’t have to be in a rodeo every night. And I think that that’s how this book comes across, that it’s layered. My whole thing was, when we want hope, we don’t need a ‘should’ or a ‘could,’ and yet we might need that gentle direction. And so I shared 35 lessons from amended soul, that when you’re ready, you can find that connection there. It’s not a “Oh, you’ve got to do step one two three four five and miracles, you’re going to feel so much better.” It’s “Hey, you know what? Come spend some time here. Enjoy a story that you might not have initially thought of as a healing story, but dig through those layers, just like you dig through your heart, and you’re going to find something in there that’s going to resonate with where you are.”

Cheri Gregory
You know, years ago, I read that hope is a door that opens from the inside out. Right, like you cannot drag somebody to a place of hope. They have to choose to open that door and walk out. But I feel like The Boy, The Boxer, and theYellow Rose is like knocking on the door, the outside of that door, and saying, “Come on, come on. There’s something beautiful out here.” It’s not forcing, for sure, it doesn’t demand, but it again, is that beautiful invitation that says, “When you’re ready, there’s good stuff waiting for you out here.”

Danielle Grosse
I think you absolutely summarized that perfectly.

Cheri Gregory

You’ll find the link to order a copy of Danielle Grosse’s powerful book, The Boy, The Boxer, and the Yellow Rose: Because You’re Never Truly Lost, You’re Healing at cherigregory.com/episode296 or in the show notes.

Now, as we’re wrapping up, here are a few reflection questions for you to process and possibly even journal about:

What is one recent situation where you recognized God’s invitation to something good, but you hesitated or resisted? What made it feel risky?

When you’re feeling apprehensive about taking a risk, how might asking Danielle’s question, “What am I anticipating?” help you find a greater sense of safety?

If biblical hope is “always an invitation, never a demand,” what is one gentle invitation from God you’re sensing right now, and what might it look like to say “yes” to Him?

Thank you for listening to Grit ‘n’ Grace – The Podcast for Highly Sensitive Christian Women!

I hope this episode leaves you feeling encouraged, equipped to thrive, and ready to open the door to hope!

Be sure to follow in your favorite podcast app and share this episode with a friend!
If you’re brand new to the whole HSP concept, come take the “Am I a Highly Sensitive Person?” quiz — you’ll find that link in the show notes.
And remember: God created you sensitive; in Christ, you are always strong.

If this conversation reminded you that hope grows best in a safe, supportive environment, the Sensitive & Strong Community Cafe is here for you. Think of it as the “wellness center” for your HSP heart. Inside, you’ll find a warm, private gathering place where you can connect with other Highly Sensitive Christian women who “get” what it means to be an HSP – and who get YOU.

To learn more, go to CheriGregory.com/cafe or click the link in the show notes.