My countenance was sullen that day. I had spent the weekend trekking through a familiar place that held many fantastical memories and overwhelming feelings of safety for being home for over a decade, all of which were dulled by the glaring absence of my brother who had been gone now for six months. There was no going back to normal or popping in for spontaneous visits anymore. Everything would now need to be planned to a “t” accounting for any emotional sustaining measures needed to “get through” being “there” again. Grief took this from me too, it just kept taking it seemed.
That Sunday morning was no different. I sat in the back of the church that I had grown up in, that I met Jesus in, that I went to bible college in, that I met my husband in, that I got married in, that we pastored in… and that we said our goodbye’s to my brother in. It was my first time back since that day and while I still had thousands of memories that I could pull on to put a smile on my face, the only one that I wanted to forget was the one that wouldn’t leave me.
Seeing his face on the screen and standing in front of friends and family telling myself to be strong and say something nice.
So on this, the first, time back I was in fact sullen.
I thought about hiding it, I thought about putting on the happy face because it is what people want to see, maybe even expect to see, but I was hurting and I let myself be free from faking any different for even if just this moment. After all, I was in God’s house and He already knew the condition of my heart.
The pastor’s wife spotted me at the end of service and upon finding my puffy red eyes that had shifted somewhere toward the ground, simply said, “Oh Vanessa, you’ve lost your joy”. And then she gave me a hug and prayed over me and said words that I wish I could remember but she was right and my sadness had blocked them out. My sadness had blocked a lot out. But I could tell you that her hug and genuine care for my heart made me want to find my way back again. To find the joy that I had lost.
So, per the usual lately, I forgot about the exchange of words until a few weeks later when I needed to create a Christmas card. This one would be for our family just after Thanksgiving so I wanted it to be full of encouragement knowing what lie ahead. If anything, just for me. That’s when that word popped up again amongst the slew of pre-formatted Christmas greetings, “joy”.
Using the word is nice, but I like to add a verse to make it the most effective, so I pulled out my bible and found these words to add to our signature at the bottom:
“May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace…” taken from Romans 15:13 which continues to say “…in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope.”
It turns out that the joy that I had been missing was more attached to the hope that I had lost all along.
A hope for my brother to be healed, a hope for his life to be restored, a hope for his miracle testimony to change lives. The hope I lost when God decided instead to use his accident to reach his soul for an eternity and let him enter the gates of Heaven. And while it was truly glorious, it was also excruciating and nothing at all what I was hoping for.
Hope is a funny thing. The definition found in the Merriam-Webster Dictionary is “to desire with expectation of obtainment or fulfillment, to expect with confidence: trust.” And then there is this funny notation at the end of it that says…
I recognized that kind of hope. I saw it in Abraham when Paul was giving an account for his journey to receiving the promise he was given. It says in Romans 4:18 that “in hope he believed against hope, that he should become the father of many nations, as he had been told…”. I read that first part a few more times to let it sink in. Also, what is sleep, so I might have read it just to understand, too.
IN hope he believed AGAINST hope.
How? How can you do this? How can you be “in” something and “against” it at the same time? That is physically impossible, and I was right. It is impossible to be in and against something at the same time – unless… well, unless that one hope was actually two opposing hopes. If it in fact was the battle between what we could plausibly put our confidence and trust in based on outcomes and experience, versus Who we could put our trust in based on our faith.
I love the way the Matthew Henry commentary puts it, it says of this passage “There was a hope against [Abraham], a natural hope. All the arguments of sense, and reason, and experience, which in such cases usually beget and support hope, were against him; no second causes smiled upon him, nor in the least favoured his hope. But, against all those inducements to the contrary, he believed; for he had a hope for him: He believed in hope, which arose, as his faith did, from the consideration of God’s all-sufficiency. That he might become the father of many nations.”
What am I asking of myself then? That I throw years of sibling bond away and disregard an entire life’s existence and subsequent giant hole that was left as if some euphoric world existed where it didn’t bring an insurmountable amount of pain? To “buck up little buckaroo” and “fake it til you make it” as if any months or years of passing will erase the fact that there is an empty chair where someone we loved dearly sat? Can someone really do this?
I propose instead that I might have mixed up my hopes to which, if I continued in this way, would only lead to a life full of sorrow and depression and feelings of defeat. (Notice that I did not say sadness as that is a natural emotional reaction to loss and is different from committing yourself to a life of sadness. It’s not the same.)
Scripture instructs us to fight against hope, in hope.
Against the hope found in our circumstances, in the hope of a loving God.
Not against the hope of our loving God, in the hope of our circumstances.
Because, friends, sometimes the results of our circumstances – found in momentary pauses of reflection to assess where you are in your story and in your journey – will cause you to believe that your hope is lost. As if this is where it ended and there was nothing else. Even Abraham’s story didn’t originally turn out like he had wanted (you know, with the maidservant and Ishmael and all) but still God’s purpose was fulfilled. Because it isn’t the end yet. So don’t give up. When we plant our feet and put our hope in a God, our God, who is patient and kind and steadfast, we can weather any storm with an assurance in knowing that as passionately as He sent His Son to this earth to take our punishment in His place – is just as passionately as He comes to comfort and redeem you.
He is coming for you friends. He is coming for you. Have hope.
XOXO Sissy
P.S.
This is not to say that I am not still sad. I have to live my entire life without my brother and all of the things that this means missing out on. I have decades ahead of me without him in it. And while this thought has plagued my mind, there is a still small voice from some hidden place in my heart that whispers to my soul that because of God’s goodness and sovereign plan - I will still get an eternity with him. That is the hope. The one that is against all others. The one that I cannot see or have tangible proof to present in a court of law, but the one that reminds me that despite great sorrow there is joy.
So forgive me while I smile through the tears, I am not confused. I am still walking the road of grief in my hope. Plodding and fighting against the “natural” way of things. Fighting against hope (for what I see and feel in the present moment), but in hope (for the glorious future of what is to come). And it turns out, the struggle is real.
But good thing, so is my Jesus.
1 Thessalonians 4:13-18 “But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about those who are asleep, that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope. For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep. For this we declare to you by a word from the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left*, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord. Therefore encourage one another with these words.”
*If you are discouraged because you are the one alive, the one who was left, please know that I am praying for you. Praying for God’s peace and comfort to mend what was broken so the loss you are feeling will be a scar to remember what was, instead of a wound to inflict more pain of what will never be. You are loved and thought of often. Don’t give up.