Hope
“Our hope is based on the love of the Father for all His children.”
Hope is an essential human characteristic. We all have hope… We will all have to answer where our hope comes from? What is our hope based in? Some people cannot articulate their hope. Even if you cannot verbalize your hope, you have it.
For me and my house, I am grateful that our hope is found in Jesus Christ, who He was, is and will forever be. Through the time of Josiah’s journey we got the opportunity to live out our hope. I did not base it on an answer to prayer but I sure did a lot of praying against the tumor. The following medical blog post from August of 2015 was how I lived with hope in the midst of dire circumstances:
August 10, 2015
Years ago, two great friends of mine got married. They were and are wonderfully, positive creative people. Their wedding was one of those truly special occasions that I have the privilege of never being able to forget.
We all ate well, laughed heartily, and worshiped deeply our Father who brought them together. The verse that they adopted for their wedding has kept with me through the years. It is a Hebrew proverb or truth statement, “Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a desire fulfilled is a tree of life.” (Proverbs 13:12)
The years of hoping for a spouse to love and enjoy with God’s mission for their lives had taken root. God had brought them together, and a new life had been born as two became one. And I can tell you, besides four children, much Life has sprung forth from their marriage.
Hope is a wonderful thing. You cannot live a moment without it. Hope is an essential component to life like breathing.
But the longer you have to wait for something, the harder it is to stomach. The more you want something, the more it makes you “sick” to wait. I think of children before Christmas. When they look under a Christmas tree and see their presents, their eyes grow big but their hearts grow faint. Thus you hear the pouring of whine from their mouths, “How many more days until Christmas?” with in a high pitched drawn out voice. Their cheeks are tinted with a little shade of green. Their tummies turn with the thought of having to wait TWO MORE DAYS.
It has been almost 4 months since we learned of Josiah’s tumor. So many tears, yes. But we still have brilliant moments of fun and laughter. These smiles I will never forget.
He continues to fight. He has gained a lot of weight in a short amount of time with the steroids. He can still walk but prefers to hold hands because his balance is not steady. His left arm is very weak and he can’t open his left hand. But he fights. He does his exercises. And he moves onward. He hopes for a brighter future.
We hope for a brighter future too. He is beginning to see a little less double vision. The doctor’s say he has gotten a bit stronger. Good news indeed. We plan on decreasing the steroids once he gets back from vacation (a week with his mother at the beach then a week with me in Williamsburg). He is excited about that possibility of shrinking back to his normal size. He is not so excited about school. We will be figuring out what that looks like when we get back as well.
So for now we continue to wait. He is getting a little better now. Does he make more improvements? Does he level out? Does he go backward? Will he be one of the very, very few that survive?
We do not know. But we hope. We have a great hope. We know our God can do far more than we can hope or imagine. But sometimes He does not answer our prayers the way we hoped. So in this time between His answer, we do have hope. And we still have to fight a “sick heart” in the in between.
A troubled stomach does not mean we lack faith. A furrowed brow does not mean we need to focus on what could be instead of what is. A sick heart just means our hope has not yet been given root to a tree of life. And that is OK.
Thanks for holding on to hope with us. Thank you for words of encouragement, prayers, and even gifts. You have been amazing. Thank you.
Hope empowered us to live through more than a “sick heart”. Our prayers were not answered in the way we were praying. I carry around a sickness that will never fully go away. I know what I hoped for was right and good. I know my hope was not based on our fine medical treatment or breakthrough. My hope was and is still based on the One who had the affection and power to have healed Josiah in an instant.
He did not heal him and my heart will forever be a little less without Josiah. But I still have hope. My hope was not centered on my son but on the victory of Jesus Christ. My hope was not in Josiah’s healing but in Christ who has the power over death. Death has had it’s day over my son. But Jesus Christ has defeated death.
When the resurrection brings forth the springs of living water to give life to his dry bones, my hope in my Savior will be fulfilled. For my hope was never in the present outcome but in the person of Jesus Christ. He alone is the giver of Life. He alone is worthy to trust through all circumstances. Hope is based on His power, plan and purposes. If I fully understood His power, plan and purposes, I would need neither faith nor hope.
The sickness of heart I feel is not the same as it was. He is healing my wounds. My hope will one day be complete as I will someday see Him who my son loves more than I.
Please hear me.
I wept and lamented through the 13 months of Josiah’s struggle. I believed that Jesus was going to heal him and deliver him from death. I hoped for a miracle. My hope in Jesus gave me joy in this awful journey.
We have a miracle making God. I asked. I pleaded. I expected great things from my God who loved Josiah more than I know what love is.
No is still an answer to our prayers. I knew it could be. I asked that it would not be. But I also know that He is God and I am not. The Father heard the prayer of His Son… “let this cup pass before me”. The Father did not spare His own Son “but gave Him up for us all”.
I will never understand why the Father did not choose or create another way for His Son or for us. But I know that He loves His Son and all of us. He is love.
Our hope is not based on what happens to us or our loved ones. Our hope is based on the love of the Father for all His children. Here I find rest.
“For God so loved the world, He gave His one and only Son. For whosoever believes in Him shall have everlasting life.”
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