Hope Again
We sat together on my mom’s porch, me studying the Bible and commenting on what a beautiful and warm Michigan summer it was, and her drinking tea and talking of Maine, reminiscing over her own favorite weather, sixties and breezy. She laughed with me good-naturedly and showed compassion at intervals when I mentioned my new family struggles as a married woman, and we made plans for the future, to have many many more days together, times sharing meals, doing baby showers, and just being together at every holiday and many days in between. She babysat my nephew Brendan a lot and my sister was getting ready to have her second son. Kids were in the distance for me but mom and I were praying I would be accepted at a graduate school, one that she had wanted me to get into, since my her best friend got to go there, while she herself had gone to Gordon in Massachusetts. My mom remembered the amazing time her friend wrote about having there and encouraged me to pursue my dreams of going to an esteemed Christian school to study. In an inscription I still have, she had written, “You will marry Wes, go to Wheaton, and have little dark-haired children that look like you, and he will evangelize and you will be a psychologist. Hope. My mom had so much of it. for me even long before I dared to dream those dream for myself.
Fast forward six months, in the midst of the strong, sour smell at a nursing home, I stood over the bed of my sleeping fifty-nine year old mother who had now gone through so many hallucinations and strange behaviors that frankly, we were lucky to have her resting and accepted into this depressing but safe place. Her husband, my father was not yet retired as a high school English teacher, and for three years before he retired, this was to be her new home. My heart pounded and my eyes filled with tears, still incredulous at my surroundings. What was she doing here? Having had severe stroke only four months after my wedding as a twenty-one year old bride, my life with her was cut short, and now, having been accepted at Wheaton, I was preparing to go. How could I leave my mom, broken and shattered as she was. Hope. Her hope, for the plans God was giving me.
In Proverbs 13:12, we find the verse, “Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life.”
Many people reminded me of this as I made plans to leave with my new husband, and those were some of the best years of our lives, being away at Wheaton together, which was an intense time of Christian growth and study. We visited home monthly and then moved back to help with mom’s care after two years, but the hope she and others held out for me has allowed me to help many others and to fulfill that dream of study I had so long ago. I wonder if there is a time in life when someone else held out hope for you when you couldn’t see any of your own. The power of the written word touched me many times over as I read the many, many letters I have from my mother, the poem she wrote over my birth, and the words penned above in a Thomas Kinkade family lineage book she bought me shortly before her stroke.
Simple and yet profound, hope can lift someone from the bottom of their own personal pit, and lift them to soaring heights, and many times, they borrow this hope from a friend or family member who has a visionary gifting, like my sweet mother.
Hope is necessary for the day-to-day things in life, and when we cannot see if for ourselves, it is time for the body of Christ to kick in and to intercede in prayer for us, to read Scriptures over us, to love us as unconditionally as possible and to offer suggestions of hope and encouragement to us.
When I doubted whether I should be going to Wheaton so much that I was having anxiety over it, my mother miraculously came out of her stroke’s stupor to bless the journey and to tell me to go, and she was herself again for the space of a couple of hours. She was talking fine, was acting generously, and was, for those few sweet hours, fully mom for all of her family to behold. Though the next ten or so years before her death would be a slow decline with both good and bad days, her spirit, which spoke of untold hope, never died, not until she went up to glory. Her last night of life, she and my father were at church (for he got saved only after he lost his strong wife and then became a loving caregiver for those last ten years). At the funeral, the minister spoke of her glorious though often erratic singing to God during the worship hour, and many members of the congregation commented on how her soul was one of the gentlest, most full of grace, and loving ones they know. Their grief was marked. I was baffled that this mom that I had written off as changed and in such decline that she was not able to have quality of life anymore, had helped so many people in the space of those last ten years, but she had. I found out that people are looking for hope in strange places, to see how people do when they are under the hot water of life, and Nancy’s hope had brought them hope for their own misfortunes.
It’s easy to be hopeful when you are young and healthy and have the world before you. It’s easy to be hopeful when you have money, time, luxuries of love and comfort at every turn, and a wonderful life. But it’s quite another to have hope when you can’t speak or it comes out mixed up, your legs don’t walk without a walker, you choke on almost everything you eat, you can’t pick up your grandchildren, and your physical health is in rapid decline to the point of being almost paralyzed in your daily activities. It was quite a transformation of my mother, but her hopefulness about the future didn’t waiver very often, and when it did, through tears, tirades on the piano (in which she improved actually) and laments sometimes, it lifted and she was her sweet self again.
I want this kind of hope, don’t you? I remember another scripture, 1st Peter 1:3, 6, “Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead…in this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kind of trials.”
My mom saw this and held out hope for the finish line, which is why she could gently doze on my father’s arm, laugh, smirk, hug, giggle with her many more grandchildren, even if she couldn’t babysit them or even speak to them. In fact, she developed quite a ‘tude and would get in childish fights with one of my sister’s toddlers, and it became quite a battle of the wills sometimes, though she would come back to herself and give in, even against the mental struggles than impaired her so. She had hope for years, and friends in Christ, if I lived half the godly life she did, I would be a saint, and I hope I do. Frankly, there is nothing more beautiful to me than someone who withstands trials with godly grace and love, and I need that reminder this week, as I endure my own smaller but still signification trials.
Does this reminder help you also? I pray for you, friend, that you find hope again if you are struggling this week. I hope that if you know someone else who is struggling, you can embrace them with God’s hope, both in this current life and in the eternal life to come, which is, “an inheritance than can never perish, spoil or fade –kept in heaven for you.” 1st Peter 1:4).”Amen to that, as we go about our week, with fresh hope alive and well, no matter the circumstances.
Take It Home
This week, take a few minutes to enliven hope again in a friend or family member who is down or discouraged in any way. The tongue has the power of both death and life, and if you choose to speak it (or write it) to others, you literally bring them closer to their dreams, a ‘longing fulfilled’ while they wait on God’s timing for their own ‘tree of life.’ Take a moment to pray for that person now, or those people, and commit to reaching out, through prayer or through a call, message, text, card, small gift, or time out together. Remember to offer them God’s promises when you do. It will be just the breath of hope they need. If you are the one struggling with hope this week, ask a trusted friend or mentor to pray for you or give you godly counsel. Borrowing hope from another is a good idea in the face of discouragement, which is why God made community. It wasn’t good for man to be alone, and if women was made to be that social counterpart, then she certainly needs fellowship as well. If your friends are too busy to give much time, simply ask them for prayer and turn to God for help. God will bless you in these efforts and will build hope again in your life. You are his child, and your promise of eternal blessings will always outshine any worldly difficult or dream, since that is our ultimate Hope.
Mommy Moments
Our children hear us talk frequently about our earthly longings, or at least mine do. One day, I hope we will do this or that, I often say. It helps us all through a particularly rough patch and gives us courage to face the battles at hand, whether they be promise of a park day or a special meal, or something even bigger and better. Remember to build hope into your children this week and always if you see them discouraged. It isn’t wrong for them to want something to look forward to, though ideally all of our children would be simply mad over each page of homework they complete and chore they do. Instead, freely offer hope for the future and include the precious hope we have in eternity with Jesus. It’s great to talk about this all the time, but when you have an especially discouraging moment in the family such as in loss of a special friendship, after a family argument, in grief, and in family crisis. Your kids need to know what keeps you going in those times so that they too can be strong in the present and future.
Pray Up
Dear Jesus,
Thank You for restoring hope in me time and again when I have come across seemingly insurmountable discouragements. I freely accept this gift of Yours and ask that hope would overflow into my life and circumstances today. Please bless my family, my friends and I as we strive to serve You well. Please point out to me clearly if there is someone I can bestow hope upon this week, and help me to do this with my dear children in small and big ways daily.
Love,
Me
