Signs of Hope

This past weekend, I sat down to breakfast with two gentlemen from my congregation.  We got together to have one of those "intellectual" discussions--particularly reflecting upon a book entitled A Place for Truth edited by Dallas Willard.  We spent two and a half hours in discussion and reflection. 

At one point as we reflected upon several issues and concerns, I spoke out, "I cannot not believe in Truth.  I cannot not have hope.  I've seen too many things and been with too many people who are suffering to believe that is the end all and be all.  There's got to be something more!"

That point, my friends is one of my basic assumptions of life.  I can't prove it rationally.  I cannot prove it mathematically.  I can give no tangible evidence for its existence.  But I believe it, none-the-less.  I have to.

Today, I visited a 12 year old girl who suffered major brain damage because of an irregular heartbeat leading to a seizure leading to a heart attack.  She was literally dead for quite some time.  She has been move from intensive care in a major children's hospital to a rehab type of hospital.  She still cannot talk.  She is moving, but we still don't know if her movements are voluntary or not.

But there is hope.  She is off of breathing helps and apparatuses.  She is off IV meds.  She has a feeding tube and is still being monitored, but it is far less than where she began.

As the physical therapists worked with her today, she held her head up on her own for extended periods of time.  She had been very reluctant to do so.  Her eyes were open more.  She was placed in a wheel chair of sorts and "driven" around the hospital.  She did extremely well in that chair which isn't the case for some patients.  All of these things are signs of hope.  Who knows what the exact future holds?  But there are moments like these.

For this little girl's parents, they don't come fast or often enough.  They would like to see her up and moving and running around with reckless abandon.  They would like answers to all the questions of why, how long will she be this way, and how will her brain damage affect her.  At this time, there are no answers.  Even with all the medical technology we have.  There are no answers.

But there is hope. 

Sometimes it's small, but it is there.  Sometimes it's the only thing to grasp onto that keeps a person getting out of bed in the morning.

I'm constantly on the lookout for it.

And even when I can't see it, I remind myself of what it must have been like to believe in Jesus for those three days He was buried in the tomb.  None of His followers expected resurrection even though He had foretold of it.  They were living in a great cloud of unknowing. 

But after the resurrection, they understood hope.  They understood there was something more.  They understood that the wrongs would be made right. 

Sometimes, I have a hard time understanding, but I try.  And won't give up.  I have to.  I need to hope.