Hope

I like to think that we are nothing without hope.  Still, people go on and on about how hopeless some situations are.  They'll conclude that there simply is no hope for someone or something, and they'll so easily let go, give up, and walk away.  Whether it's a relationship with someone we love or some sort of challenge ahead of us, we've had that thought at least once.  This. Is. Hopeless.

It's easy to do, isn't it?  When the obstacles are too numerous or you're just too tired to fight on, it's the most painless thing to do.  Sometimes we want to just release it, lay down that burden of it all, and rest.  Don't deny it.  You've been there before, haven't you?  You know exactly what I'm talking about.

Maybe you're doing it right now.  I honestly don't know.  But don't.

Have you ever rooted for your favorite football team and looked at the scoreboard... and seen that they're losing 0-24 and half the game's gone by?  I have.  I deemed that game a loss.  I never imagined anything otherwise or accepted any reality in which my team would come back.  But they did.

Let me tell you a "hopeless" story.  About 20 years ago, on the other side of this planet, about eight thousand miles away from here, a young woman discovered she was pregnant.  She had no money, home, or confidence that she could take care of the baby.  Abortion?  No.  That was illegal in her country.  It wasn't an option.  The father?  Gone.  Medical care?  She couldn't afford it.  It was hopeless.  Where could she go?  How could she raise this child?  On her own?  No way.  No.  Way.  9 months later, she gave birth to a baby boy.  Its face was terribly disfigured, one side a bit lopsided, the skull forming incorrectly and the face oddly balanced due to the lack of an eye.  You see, the human skull, whether you believe it or not, builds itself around the eyes.  Your cheek bone, your forehead, the entire height of the skull on each side is dependent on each eye for symmetry and proper shape.  This baby, however, was missing one.  The socket was open, sensitive to the dirty environment he was doomed to live in.  Hope had set in upon the birth... but as this mother looked upon her newborn baby, she felt, again, hopeless.

Maybe not all of us give birth to baby boys with missing eyes, but we all go through something like this.  We lose hope... and then we lose it more so, even though we thought that wasn't possible.  The problems go from bad to worse.  And we give up.

You see... there's just one part of this equation we leave out.  When we try to calculate how much hope is left, we leave out the primary factor that determines this: ourselves.  There is always hope.  It's never over until it's over.  And we always have a choice to make things better or worse, but that's another post.

The part of ourselves that we leave out is the fact that we're emotional people, and we're too subjective.  All we see are the problems.  We see the missing eye.  The messed up face.  The crying.  The abnormality and, I suppose, freakiness of the lost body part.  We see a mistake.  Something with the odds against it.  We think we can't do it.  That we can't go on.  We jump to the worst-case scenarios, and then the even more worse ones.  And the downward spiral begins.

Notice how I say that.  We lose hope.  Hope is still there.  But we just lose it.  Don't lose hope.

Because, this baby boy is still kicking it.  He's twenty now, and he's alive and well.  His face is normal.  You wouldn't ever know there was an eye missing.  You'd never guess unless you paid the utmost closest attention.  He's only hungry when he chooses to skip a meal. He's only cold when he's outside shoveling or if he forgets to turn on the space heater before he sleeps.  He's surrounded by great people, he has goals to better himself and succeed in the future.

That mother, twenty years ago, might have lost hope.  That story wasn't dramatized.  It's not a fabrication.  It happened.  Her situation is real, and it happens all the time.  It's not a unique problem or challenge.  She might have given up or felt that there was no way out and no possible way that she could make it okay.

I'll admit, I don't know if she felt exactly that way.  I don't know.  I don't know her.  I don't know where she is.  And I may never be able to find her.

But here I am.  I'm here, now.  I'm still breathing.  Most people would deem that as a hopeless situation.  To get the care I need for the eye and the proper shape and color, I have to drive two hours away to a doctor who specializes in making prosthetic eyes for people across the nation.  Did my birth mother, 20 years ago, ever suspect that this was possible?  Probably not.

Subjectivity gets in the way.  And I don't expect it to not.  We don't know all the possibilities because, frankly, it's incomprehensible and there are simply too many.

I don't know how religious you guys are.  But I cling to hope in my God.  I believe that He knows what's coming, and He's with me every step of the way.  No, it's not predetermination, but a confident expectation, a hope, that no matter how low my life gets, His light will shine through and brighten any darkness I'm drowning in.  I don't believe God is going to just lift me up and wipe all my problems away.  No, my problems are still there, and they're very much real and in my face.  I believe, however, that God didn't intend for me to fail, but to succeed against them.  I have hope that I can overcome anything life throws at me.

And here's a scripture plop: "No trial has overtaken you except what is common to mankind. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tested beyond what you can bear. But when you are tested, he will also provide a way out so that you can endure it" (1 Cor. 10:13).

I have hope that I will figure my way through any problems I face, and I have hope that I will never be faced with something I cannot overcome.  I have God.  I have these wonderful people in my life, and I have this story of my birth mother that reminds me this one thing: hope is always there, whether I believe so or not.  I'm a living testimony to this.

In the Walking Dead (yes I'm making another reference), the characters all struggle with hope.  Some consider suicide as the better alternative to surviving.  They question whether God even exists through all the death, suffering, and pain.  Rick, the main character, even voices his loss of hope at the end of season one.

I think that this one of the more appealing and interesting effects of the show; it makes you question that, as well.  If that were to happen, would you fight on, or would you end it and prevent the suffering and fighting?

You know, I'd choose to fight.  Because the safe haven they're after... it's not a pipe dream or impossible goal... look at them and how they interact with each other.  Each person in that group fuels them.  They find their little safe havens in each other.  And that's my ultimate conclusion...

Hope is always there.  We can cling to it or let go.  And our relationships... our families, loved ones, and friends... they are our fuel that will ignite this spark of hope into victory, overcoming of anything and everything, and success over all our trials and obstacles.

Keep calm... and kill the walkers.

Random Fact of the Day: Don't drink Red Bull at midnight.  YOU WILL NOT SLEEP.

 

Do you like my website or the content of the blog?  Like my page here! Thanks for visiting!