Unending Hope

Hope is the thing with feathers That perches in the soul, And sings the tune--without the words, And never stops at all,
And sweetest in the gale is heard; And sore must be the storm That could abash the little bird That kept so many warm.
I've heard it in the chillest land, And on the strangest sea; Yet, never, in extremity, It asked a crumb of me.

What is hope? This is a question I've been asking myself a lot lately. I can't help but to reflect. To turn to experiences of myself and others.

In junior high, my grandfather was diagnosed with liver cancer. The doctors told us that it was the slowest growing form of cancer, but that they world know nothing more until they went in and did exploratory surgery. A random fact about the liver: If any portion of it is removed, it grows back as if nothing was wrong. So my family entered the surgery positively, knowing Grandpa would be OK. As the doctors went in, the tumors were far more numerous than they expected, and were located near to vital arteries. Removing the tumors was no longer an option. Chemo was not an option, as Grandpa was in his 70's. I remember hearing the news and my mom, grandma and I drove back to the hospital after eating Jason's Deli for lunch. My grandma burst into tears and hugged my dad harder than I've ever seen someone hug before. My chin quivered as tears streamed down my cheeks, and my mom squeezed my hand. The doctors said the cancer was unpredictable. They gave him anywhere from 3 months to 3 years to live. Did this stop Grandpa? Absolutely not. He had hope that if he didn't let the cancer defeat him, he could outlive the diagnosis. He drove to Cleburne, Texas, Commerce, Texas, Louisville, Kentucky and everywhere in between to see ALL of my volleyball games. My grandparents became the mascots of my cousin's soccer teams, as they never missed a game. Whether they wiped drops of sweat off of their foreheads during sweltering summer heat, or were chilled to the bone during blistery winter games, they never missed a game. 5 years after the initial diagnosis, my grandfather passed away. He had hope that he could make the most of his life he had left. Hope carried him through.

During this time, I took an honors English class in 7th grade. For our biggest project, we had to choose a word and research it. It's definition. It's origin. We, then, had to search for an article that described the word to us and a poem that symbolized the word's meaning. My word: Hope. The Emily Dickinson poem at the top was the poem that I chose. I still love the image of the bird. It continues to inspire me.

I continually come back to Psalm 51 in my daily quiet times. This psalm was written after David committed adultery with Bathsheba. He confesses to God, realizing that he cannot change his ways. That he has no power over sin in his life. But God does. This has been a lesson I've been learning lately. My hope to overcome sin is in God. I cannot do it on my own. But through God transforming my heart, changing me from the inside out, I can. He can.

What is hope? Hope is what helps us to press on. To know times will get better even when they are hard. To know that we were made for something higher. For something more. Hope is what pushes us through.