There Is Always Hope

The hospital room where my twenty-six-year-old daughter lay against snowy sheets grew quiet as a tomb. Her husband sat next to her. He leaned his back against the wall, holding her hand, which was covered with bandages. Tubes pulled at her pale skin. His thumb caressed her palm back and forth, back and forth.

Each word dropped into the stillness like falling glass, slowing time and punctuating it. No hope…

The eyes of everyone who loved her stared at the neurologist while the words shattered around us. We flinched at their brittle clatter. A stethoscope necklace hung against him. His hairless head reflected fluorescent light. A beam of sunshine from the floor to ceiling window cut his white coat in half like a slice of glory, incongruous against words blacker than any night we’d ever walked through.

Affliction gets quite the bum rap in our society, and it bleeds into our thinking as believers. I mean, who likes to suffer? Yet it’s not all bad; because we suffer, we also hope. Can it be that in our quest to dull painful circumstances, we may also shortchange what God has allowed for our ultimate blessing? Can it be that grief affords glimpses of far-off glory? In Romans 8:18 Paul says, “I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us” (NIV). And in Romans 8:24–25 he says, “In this hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience” (ESV).

“In this hope,” Paul writes. He has just described assurance, solid and indisputable. We know, Paul promises, what is to come through our redemption in Jesus Christ. He highlights contrasts of faith, extreme and irreconcilable except through the gift of salvation. Life and death, flesh and spirit, slave and free all set Paul’s stage to bring up an uncomfortable reality: we suffer.

When my son was small, we bribed him with a kitten. Oh, yes, it was undeniable manipulation, but it worked. I really wanted that kitten myself, so we’ll call it a win-win. The sweetness of its purr and soft warm body on my lap and my son’s delight was a magical combination—until the tiny creature dropped a straight floor down our spiral stairway. With eight lives left, he never went close to those steps again. Rather, while the rest of the family gathered at the fireplace below and watched a movie or played a game, Nike, the not-so-good-on-his-feet cat, sat at the top and meowed for us to carry him down. He never forgot the pain. He never moved on.

How like that cat I can be at times. The suffering of my past can hold me captive in its hurt while I refuse to let go or take a step forward. I don’t want to walk into the same misery twice. I try to deaden pain or detour around it, while God wants me to embrace it. His desire is for my good even in sorrow.

My difficulties don’t define him. He is who he claims to be. An unaltering God does not waver. He allows difficulties to teach me and lead me in worship of him that defies heartache.

“For who hopes for what he sees?” Paul asks.

Like a gift secretly uncovered by its recipient steals away its anticipation, the very nature of hope must come without our yet realizing it. Who hopes for what he sees?

“There is no hope,” despair whispers, not only in our darkest hours but often in our day-to-day and in the normal testing of life. It tells us change is impossible. It convinces us to give up.

The doctor’s summation of my daughter’s illness struck us like a judge’s gavel. “Who does he think he is?” my son-in-law asked. “He can’t take away our hope.”

The surgeon’s words have come to me so many times in so many moments. When the same issue repeats in our marriage, and despair whispers that transformation is impossible, I hear it. When I’m put into a situation with a colleague and she hurts me again, “there is no hope” threatens. When rejection tears me down and disappointment weakens my resolve I’m reminded of no hope, like a stuck cat refusing to move forward.

I remember my son-in-law’s words in my valley today when courage siphons from my heart like water and my physical eyes see what my spiritual eyes don’t yet envision: “He can’t take away our hope.”

Jesus remains by our side “even if” and “even when” the worst whispers, “There is no hope.”

When an argument puts you in a corner with nowhere to go, when hurt strikes like a relentless hammer, or words tear apart your spirit, he is the One worthy of worship in every situation, no matter how dark.

The doctor was wrong about our daughter. She did not die, although her life was altered forever by the disabling effects of her illness. Yet hope shines. It paints with an unlikely brush, using strokes of the Master’s hand while the complete picture waits.

We miss much by going around what needs to be gone through. Faith is tried in the gap of seeming hopelessness, but it’s also where trust births. It’s the space where we begin to understand that green pastures need deep valleys.

So we wait for the glory. We don’t see it yet in the middle of the mud and difficulty, but biblical hope assures us it’s coming. Whatever trial I face now can’t compare with the glory beyond.

Be patient, dear ones. It will be worth the wait.

Sylvia Schroeder serves as Women’s Care Coordinator at Avant Ministries. Mom to four, grandma to 13, and wife to her one and only love, she enjoys writing about all of them. Find her blog at When the House is Quiet. Like her Facebook page or follow her on Twitter.