Where Does Hope Live?
Hope is illusive
She knocks on my door
I invite her in
I set my wooden tray with a pot of tea,
I add my favorite mug with the wild flowers
I take it into the living room where I left her waiting
but she has slipped away.
Hope is confusing
I hear her whispering softly and ask
“I’m sorry, what did you say?”
She repeats herself but even more quietly
and I feel a little skeptical about whether she wants me
to know her or not.
Every once in a while, hope will come to me boldly,
embrace me warmly
and for a whole day I will fly on her wings
and be utterly free.
Where does hope live?
I wish I knew
so I could knock on her door
instead of her on mine
and I could make her talk to me
Explain why she comes and why she goes
and where she lives
when she is not with me.
I don’t remember exactly when I wrote this poem, but I do remember how I felt. Exhausted physically. Exhausted emotionally. I had been on a long health journey of multiple waiting rooms, misdiagnoses, specialists and unknowns. I had lost much of my vision due to optic nerve damage and finally been diagnosed with both MS and fibromyalgia.
I missed the freedom of driving, the details of a beautiful sunset, and the pleasure of recognizing a familiar face from across the room. The grief of losing written books and turning written pages was almost unbearable. This dear companion had sustained me through much of my life. The pleasure and comfort of my favorite pastime, strolling through a bookstore or library for hours, was gone.
But the spiritual exhaustion was by far the worst. Where was the God I had served for over 30 years? Was he even aware of my suffering? Did he hear my cries and prayers? Had I done something to offend him or disappoint him? Was I praying the wrong way? Had I missed some secret key to healing that only he knew? He was eerily silent as I sought him for the right doctors, his healing, and his presence. I had wept more times than I can detail, prayed 100s of prayers, and been prayed for by pastors, friends, and strangers.
Every day I was looking for the Lord. One day I felt certain he was walking with me; the next I was equally certain he was nowhere in sight. Job 23 became my story. In Chapter 23, Job is confident that God is just, and equally confident God would see the unfairness of Job’s sufferings IF he could just reason with God. But Job cannot find God to plead his case. I connected with the loneliness of Job as he cried out, “But if I go to the east, he is not there; if I go to the west, I do not find him. When he is at work in the north, I do not see him; when he turns to the south, I catch no glimpse of him.” (Job 23:8-9)
Where was hope? Where did she live? Was I destined to carry this heavy weight of grief and loss forever?
I realized for most of my life, hope had been nothing more than a positive attitude, optimistic energy, wishful thinking. I hope this happens. I hope that works out. I hope I get what I need (or want). I hope in God (kind of).
That kind of hope had sustained me before, but now she was fickle and unfaithful to me. She came with every worship song I sang in church, yet left with every new physical pain or increased loss of vision. She professed friendship with me when I was in the presence of my family or close friends, but left me when I was awake, alone, and fretting in the middle of the night.
Where did hope live? I wanted to have her by my side at all times. Yet she kept coming and going, coming and going. I searched the Scriptures to find her and what I found was an entirely different kind of hope than I had known.
I found the hope of the Psalmist who cried “Why so downcast, O my soul? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God.” (Psalm 43:5) and “In him our hearts rejoice, for we trust in his holy name. May your unfailing love be with us, Lord, even as we put our hope in you.” (Psalm 33:21-22)
Throughout the Psalms and other scripture, I found hope isn’t wishful thinking or a positive attitude at all. She also isn’t the false comfort that God will rescue me from all pain. In fact, true hope isn’t a feeling at all.
Hope, simply put, is a decision to make.
Did I really believe in the redemptive story of the gospel? Did I really believe in the historical evidence of Jesus’ death and resurrection? Did I really believe that with Jesus’ resurrection, God broke into our world with a new kind of kingdom? Did I really believe in the overarching story of a Creator who wants desperately to know me and be known by me?
Hope is a decision to put confidence in the fact that, even in the middle of absolute uncertainty, God is still God. Hope is a decision to put belief and trust in the truth of the gospel and his redemptive story. She isn’t a decision based on a blind leap into some feel-good faith, but based on the story of a faithful God. She isn’t stirring up some stubborn strength of your own to hold on to, but finally giving over to a deep trust that God has not forgotten you.
Over the last several years I have learned through all my ups and downs that hope is a decision to make. It is a confident expectation and trust that God is still at work in my life, even though his work may feel veiled or hidden. I don’t have to wait for heaven to know hope because I know him now. Even on my worst days, which still come, I can have hope, because now I know where she lives.
“We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure. It enters the inner sanctuary behind the curtain, where our forerunner, Jesus, has entered on our behalf. He has become a high priest forever, in the order of Melchizedek.”
Hebrews 6:19-20
