Awhile ago I asked a friend if he wanted to write something for this blog. He and his wife were instrumental in helping Chris and I cope with the understanding of growth through the suffering involved with having a child who requires total care. Thank you Steven for writing this eloquent post! And thanks for all friends who encourage and support us along our journey!“Hope deferred makes the heart grow sick.” -Proverbs 13:12
The care of someone with special needs, indeed any endeavor that requires great reserves of self-sacrifice, is like riding the tides: you vacillate (to varying degrees) between the peaks of satisfaction/reward and the troughs of despair and ennui. Your emotions thrive one day, and languor the next. That despair, that languor can properly be called hopelessness. Why else do we give into despair but that we have no hope? When we feel that our options are bankrupt and our stores are spent, we cannot consider the future with any optimism. In that place, we’re left defenseless against fear, anxiety, and all the other bugbears that haunt us in the darkness of the night. It’s not good.
In an effort to get to the bottom of this hope/lessness issue, let’s look to that old bastion of ancient wisdom, the Bible. When we do, we find is that it’s chock full of instruction on the subject. To wit:
- Those who speak on the subject know what they’re talking about. Interestingly, those who mention hope the most are those who suffered the most: Job (he of the killed children, slaughtered cattle, and leprosy—not to mention the nagging, negative, God-cursing wife), David (whose life story reads like an adventure novel: he was chased into hiding for years by a jealous king then, once made king himself, his first-born son died as an infant, then his second son, who intended to overthrow his father’s reign, was later killed in battle), the prophet Jeremiah (whose life was a living sermon to the Israelites regarding the pain is God’s heart over their faithlessness and callousness—including being thrown into prison, then into a cistern, and finally being held under house arrest. Another prophet, Hananiah, even opposed him, breaking a yoke that Jeremiah wore to symbolize captivity; moreover, the priest Pashhur beat him and put him in stocks), and the apostle Paul (who was famously homeless and destitute for years; shipwrecked three times; beaten, flogged, and imprisoned; stripped of his high social status because of his faith; and finally beheaded, or so we’re told). There are no untouched-by-human-hands ‘scholars’ writing to us about hope in the Bible. Our sources from wisdom are men who were familiar with pain, isolation, and even torment. So apparently, hope is an important commodity to those who suffer. Well we knew that already, but at least the Bible agrees.
- Hope requires that we not tie the future to the past or present. Hopelessness is myopic: we cannot conceive of a future that’s better (or even, distinct) from the pain and confusion of our present. Hope turns this around, insisting that even if a tree is cut to the ground, it can sprout again (Job 14:7).
- This brand of seeing-beyond-my-circumstances hope requires, of course, an anchor outside ourselves. Otherwise, hope is nothing but Happy Wishing, which is illusory and rather sad. The anchor, at least in the Bible’s view of the world, is, of course, God. And not just God as Big Great God Who Maketh The Cosmos, but a particular aspect of God: his love.
"The eyes of the LORD are on those who fear Him, upon those who hope in his unfailing love." - Psalm 33:18
"Oh, Israel! Put your hope in the LORD, for with the LORD is unfailing love!" - Psalm 130:7
"Whoever hopes in God gets their strength renewed." - Isaiah 40:31
- Hope seems to be grown primarily in suffering, as we’ve seen. But if your goal is hope (as it’s a desirable characteristic of God and, so, of a redeemed, whole human) then, in some strange way, suffering also becomes, if not desirable per se, at least as helpful in shaping us. At least, you can’t read Paul without seeing his gratitude regarding his suffering…
"We… rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us." -Romans 5:3-5
- Paul actually prayed that his friends would have hope (Romans 15:13, Ephesians 1:18). Does that mean that he wanted them to experience suffering, as well? We can’t say, exactly. But he did seem to indicate that not having hope is a form of immaturity and even godlessness:
"Brothers, I do not want you to be ignorant… or to grieve like those who have no hope." - I Thessalonians 4:13
"An evil man has no future hope…" -Proverbs 24:20
- Other hope factoids: Hope produces security (Job 11:18), hope is a conscious choice (Psalm 42:5), hope removes shame (Psalm 25:3), and hope protects us from the deathly reflex of asking why (Job 13:15).
Fascinating stuff. While it’s hard to get a place, no matter how pious it sounds, where we actually desire suffering (what are we, masochists?!), it’s clear that the Bible teaches that hope can be had by putting one’s trust in God’s character and words. Outside of Him, there is no promised shelter from the storms of life. So today, I think of the Brownings, and the suffering I’ve seen in my own life, and I resolve to press into hope.
"I remember my affliction and my wandering, the bitterness and the gall. I well remember them, and my soul is downcast within me. Yet this I call to mind and therefore I have hope: Because of the LORD's great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. I say to myself, "The LORD is my portion; therefore I will wait for him." The LORD is good to those whose hope is in him, to the one who seeks him; it is good to wait quietly for the salvation of the LORD. It is good for a man to bear the yoke while he is young. Let him sit alone in silence, for the LORD has laid it on him. Let him bury his face in the dust—there may yet be hope. Let him offer his cheek to one who would strike him, and let him be filled with disgrace. For men are not cast off by the Lord forever. Though he brings grief, he will show compassion, so great is his unfailing love. For he does not willingly bring affliction or grief to the children of men." - Lamentations 3:19-26
