As you may or may not know, hope is
something that does not come easily for me. I am prone to think the worst about
situations and catastrophize. This is much easier to do than to be upbeat and
positive. In fact, everyone is familiar with that old joke that exclaims
sarcastically, “It takes more muscles to smile than to frown.” I am not
necessarily sure if this is true and even if it is, that doesn’t give it the
right to be the guiding maxim of your life.
I will say that fear and happiness do
not go hand in hand. Neither does pain and happiness. Some people are
graciously able to accept, or rather, feign acceptance of their situations.
Others buck and kick against it, hoping to destroy it with their sheer wills.
Unfortunately, will itself is not enough to break through any illness.
Otherwise, I would have broken through my illness years ago. I have been so mad
and frustrated by it as a child and an adult, that I have gone to great lengths
to battle it—only to end up losing.
So, why and how can you learn to hope?
I don’t mind admitting that hope is something I have to learn. I don’t think
hope comes naturally to many human beings. The Bible urges people to hope. In
the New King James Version of the Bible, Hebrew 11:1 states, “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the
evidence of things not seen.” There is a strong correlation between faith and
hope. If you have faith, you should have hope, right?
Here’s the tricky part.
It all boils down to what you hope for. Some of us hope for worldly changes and
physical and mental changes in ourselves or others. Some hopefully look forward
to the day when ascension to heaven will be reached and the world will be
renewed.
I believe God wants us to have hope
for our lives, even though they are “but vapor” as is states in Ecclesiastes. We
were created from the most delicate substance of all: dust. Dust is easily
separated and can be totally blown away by gusts. Sometimes gale storms and
torrential downpours scatter our cognizance far and wide and cause them to
congeal and form into cakes of filthy mud. It makes sense that we would be
uncertain of many things because our own genetic makeup is absolutely unsure
and hinged on chance. In his epic poem “The Wasteland”, T.S. Eliot wrote the
following line: “I will show you fear in a handful of dust.” I have always
taken this to relate back to humanity’s fear of its own mortality and fear of
its own great imposing frailty. That has been among some of the top literary
quotes ever made in my own opinion.
Hope is a funny thing. You don’t
necessarily have to hope for anything. It can just be an abiding feeling. You
don’t need to say to yourself, “Okay, I will set a goal and then hope for it.”
If you have been keeping up with my blogs and writings, you will notice that
hoping for something specific may lead to folly because you may or may not just
get it someday. And, furthermore, who can really say that they hope for one
thing continuously. As I have aged, I have found that some of my hopes are
mainstays while some have simply fallen by the wayside. So, to pick one thing
and to hope it will make you happy is not really the point of hope.
The point of hope is to give us strength to continue through life.
When everything else in completely gone, we still have hope. Hope is still
readily available at no cost to the broken hearted or the broken souled. One of the verses that I used to mock when I
was against God and when His hand was against me was Jeremiah 29:11. Jeremiah 29:11 states, “For I know the plans I have for
you, declares the LORD, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a
future and a hope.” At this time I believed I did not have a future. If you ask
me now, I might reply in the same tone. I’m not really expecting much anymore.
That does not mean I have given up hope. It means I have not given in to
irrational hopes as I had done before as I was younger. See, Jereiah 29:11 does
not state that God will give you everything you desire. I’ve pointed this out
many times. If you believe in God, yes; He has a plan for you. However, His
plan and your plan may be two different things.
As a human, I feel that I
have little control over the things that go on in my own life. Even when I am
at my deepest and darkest moments, even though I imagine ending things
outright, I know that I can’t do that. I don’t think that suicide is a coward’s
way out. I know it gravely and deeply wounds families but I know that the
people whom commit suicide know that they will be hurting the ones they love. I
do not believe they kill themselves to hurt people deliberately in a wide
majority of cases. I just think there is a point where pain can no longer be
endured nor managed and they only see one obvious exit sign marked in big red
letters.
As a Christian, I have an
abiding hope. I do not know why and I suppose I must attribute it to God. My
life is terrifying. I wake up terrified. I have episodes of panic and DP and DR
every day. I am also Agoraphobic. None of these are classified as serious
illnesses but they still chip away at the prospects of my life. So, if you
think I’m a person with blessed life standing on a soapbox and preaching at
you, then you are wrong. I live with conditions that cannot be cured and erode
away at the very core of my life like battery acid.
This hope keeps me from
pulling the trigger or crafting the noose. I just can’t do it. I suppose in my
heart I know that even if these illness never go away that there will be things
in life I will enjoy. Sure, maybe I’ll never be married. Maybe none of my
heart’s desires will come to pass in God’s will. You must remember my reaction
to Matthew 19 a few days ago. The reason I won’t simply allow myself to die is
because I don’t know what’s around the corner. And, also, small things make me happy.
For example, instead of dying, I could just have a chocolate malt and watch
television or write something. That sounds horribly silly, but that is the kind
of low key activities that I look forward to. Everyone has something to look
forward to.
Listen carefully, hope does
not mean to sit there and hope that your life will turn out that certain way
that YOU want it to. Hope is just the simple abiding feeling of continuing on
the journey of life for no particular reason. Even if your life has been darkened
by the great arm of illness and sorrow which spreads its long shadow over
everything you have known or ever will know, you can still hope. One of my
favorite verses from the Bible is the Lord’s response to Paul in 2 Corinthians
12:9. Here in this gospel, Paul has prayed three times for a thorn in his flesh
to be removed. We do not know the nature of the “thorn in his side.” We simply
know it was there and he prayed repetitively for it to be gone. I certainly
know that feeling. Finally, regarding his thorn, Paul finally wrote about the
Lord’s answer to him. Paul wrote, “And he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for
thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly therefore will I
rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me.”
Take great notice of that verse. Paul was never
healed. This does not mean God is unjust or unable. You must remember that
miracles are called “miracles” for a reason. They are called “miracles” because
they do not happen every day. If they happened everyday they would be called
“commonplace”, wouldn’t they?
It is a comfort to me to
know that I am at least useful to the Lord if to no one else in my crippled
state and my blackened disposition. The phrase “My strength is made perfect in
weakness” means that in weakness we easily succumb to things—this includes
God’s will for us. We have withered and I believe it is God’s delight to
surprise up and cause us to spring back up even at the zero hour. Paul also
says that he would “rather glory in my infirmities that the power of Christ may
rest upon me.” People who do not live with degenerating illnesses can find hope
and faith a bit easier than those of us that struggle with mental and physical
illnesses. I am not saying that “normal” people don’t have problems. Everyone
has problems.
However, there is something
to be said about enduring constant and repetitive suffering. It bends you and
bows you and you crave hope all the more. Just as a starving man will scramble
for a piece of bread crust thrown into the dirt so do we too scramble for a
dislodged piece of hope originating from the heavens.
Even while being crucified on the cross, one of the thieves being
crucified alongside Jesus found peace in His presence. Now, get that through
your head. These men were dying slow agonizing deaths and being gawked at by
the curious masses. One of the theieves recognizes Jesus and his power and asks
for forgiveness. While the three of these men were on the cross, nailed to
planks of wood by their hands and feet, with strong metal nails bolted through
the fragile line of their tendons, they still had presence of mind. And, in an
odd way, two of them still had hope. The two that still had hope were Jesus and
the thief who asked for redemption. After asking to be saved, Jesus replied to
the thief in Luke23:43 by saying, “Verily I say unto thee, To day shalt thou be with me in
paradise.”
Notice that Jesus was
not concerned with the darkness he was in. He was wrapped in the blackest
darkness of all—being face to face with death. Yet all that was reflected in
the eyes of that thief and Jesus was a pure picture of paradise.
I know that many of us
asked why we are not cured. But we must remember that Paul was not cured by the
Lord and he was very close to the Lord. We also must not remember the failings
of Peter and how those failing broke his heart for he loved Jesus dearly. And,
most of all, we must remember that although He had the ability to do so with
one movement of his pinky finger, Jesus Christ did not save Himself from his
own suffering. We all have crosses to bear. I have written that before and it
is true. The only person able to help you shoulder that cross is Jesus Himself
because he was the original bearer of the cross. No other human being can
transport himself or herself into your mind or body and help you shoulder the
pain.
Here
is where hope comes in. You should always have hope. Remember that Jesus said
that all was required of us was to have hope the size of a mustard seed and
that would move mountains. If I recall correctly, a mustard seed is very
miniscule. Now, you may not move the mountain or obstacle of your choice out of
your way, but you may remove other obstacles with faith and hope in the Lord.
So, before you throw in the towel, give just a tiny bit of hope a chance.
© Megan Snider 2012
(c) Megan Allyce
Snider 2012
Copr. M. Allyce Snider 2012
Copyright Megan Snider MMXII
