Hope Deferred
“Hope deferred makes the heart sick...”
The last year I remember living through that held not an ounce of pain was my sixth. I turn forty-five this month.
Sound like a dramatic statement? Depression, anxiety, joint pain, muscle weakness, skin disorders, vision impairment, asthma, allergies, gut pain, malnutrition due to restricted diet, neuropathy, migraines, etc.
These conditions started, each in some way, when I turned seven. Downhill from there.
With persistent pains, suffering, evil, to hope begins to hurt. Hope becomes pain. When hopes are dashed over and over, our brains begin to associate one with the other, in a protective function.
I paraphrase, but C.S. Lewis said that for many believers, aging produces not a greater amount nor frequency of experiencing God; rather, a deepening desire for God.
The deepest pain I’ve experienced hasn’t been in my body. The deepest has been in my soul.
Seeking God diligently from an early age, with that search coalescing into Christian Faith in my mid twenties, I’ve found very few experiences of God.
The best wine, they say, comes from grape vines that have struggled. That wine is not a metaphor for me, but for my spiritual life.
Getting up every day, knowing with almost complete confidence that healing will not show up, nor the Lord, has an unexpected effect. Rather than a squelching… a deepening of desire. Rather than capitulation, a resolve found in that persistent desire. Desire so powerful that the mere hint or fleeting glimpse of either the chance at some healing, or, much more so, the presence of God brings a flood of tears. Shaking sobs. Yearning that hurts in its intensity.
So, the sickened heart that deferred hope produces is not a dead heart. Not a weak one. In fact, I think that heart is quite strong. It is simply a joyless heart. A waiting heart.
“... when the thing comes, it is a wellspring of life.”
A few months ago, I was finally diagnosed with Crohn’s. Then, a friend referred me to a healing diet. So, what began 38 years ago is now coming to an end, slowly. When I got the diagnosis, I wept. When I found the diet, I wept. When it started working, I wept. Tears of relief. Not joy, not yet, because this is the turning of the tide, not the height of the tide. But, I sense that joy approaches.
I routinely say to myself, “My hope is in the Lord”. My hope is not in me, hope doesn’t sit inside me. Now, I’m sensing that hope in the Lord. I’m sensing His hope, in him. If that grows... perhaps I will also soon experience God, even for a fleeting moment.
The bright morning sun shall rise.
Joshua Everett Mayer