Hope

One of my “life words” (you know, those words that by merely being said bring a meaning and direction to all that life holds) is HOPE.

It hasn’t always been. Actually in the scheme of my life, it hasn’t been very long at all.

Hope became one of my life words some 2 ½ years ago. In my first semester as a cancer patient and furthermore, a student with cancer, I can’t say ‘hope’ was really in the forefront of my mind. I don’t know that I had considered the word at all until one of my professors stood in front of our lecture hall class and began telling a personal anecdote. This wasn’t unusual for him and we all settled in for story time. He was explaining how he realized this particular instance of his life was causing him to lose hope and the need for hope and then he said:

“When I think about hope, I think about Anika. I think about all she is going through and experiencing and see someone who has and is hope...”

The whole class turned and looked at me awkwardly and I remember blushing some terrible shade of fluorescent red as I managed a wiry smile.

My insides were screaming! I was intensely frustrated with this professor whom I both appreciated and admired. I was at the season of my experience where I was crippled by supreme exhaustion and a medically induced depression. My smile was painted, pinned on, screwed in tight and so automatic that I no longer knew when it was real. This smile accompanied words that I expected others wanted to hear but I, myself, barely comprehended or heard as they left my mouth. And, I was fighting tirelessly with a God I was convinced wasn’t really doing much. Hope? Me? You’re kidding, right?

Over the next few months, I came to understand that the word hope had more to do with standing in the promise and expectation that God was going to show up. Hoping, at its truest, is standing attest to the fact that God is present, active, involved. Despite the fights I have over and over and over again with the only One in the universe who loves me completely and perfectly and unconditionally, I do tend to stand in the expectation that He is in the business of showing up, revealing Himself, giving reasons to look past where I’m at to see where He is...

Hope reminds me that regardless of where I’m at, life isn’t over yet. God has more in store. He needs to be praised anyway. (Praise is a developing “life word”...I’m just not very good at it).

The last couple months of my life have been characterized by transition. Difficult transition. I can’t say I’ve done a good job of holding onto a life word like “hope”. I get stuck in the drudgery of my days bemoan how much I feel I’m missing and worry about what will or will not be provided... Praise hasn’t come naturally and praise, which is a choice, has not been the choice I have made. I’ve chosen instead to sulk and complain – far too often.

This week as piece after piece seemed to be coming together for a job I was actively pursuing, I rediscovered how much hope (and praise) had been missing from my waiting game. And yet, hope is all about seeking and trusting God to work all things together for the best – and not about what I think I would wish for to happen. As I found myself hoping, I found myself drawn back to the face of Christ and subsequently away from the position I so thought I wanted. God is showing up...just not in the ways I expected. Perhaps I was pulled away (I declined a position before I was offered – although that is where it was headed) because (among other reasons) I feel God has something different and better in store. Hope says God showed up just as much as helping me find peace in rough decisions as He is in leading where the next step is. A God who shows up like that is worthy of praise, always.

1 Peter 1:3-9