“My hope is in you, God
I am steadfast, I will not be moved.
I’m anchored, never shaken.
All my hope is in you.”

(from “Hope’s Anthem” by Bethel Music)

This was the song I sang all the way to the hospital on the morning of May 14, 2013 after receiving the call that Timothy had been rushed to the PICU with an extremely high fever and heart rate.  It was the song I quoted in Timothy’s Caring Bridge Journal late that same night when I updated friends and family on his precarious condition.  And it was one of the worship songs we sang at his Celebration of Life ten days after he died.

Four days later, I wrote this in my prayer journal:

“Two weeks ago today Timothy left us.  How can it be two weeks?  Where did they go, and what did I do?  Did I really go shopping for dresses and shoes?  How did I do that?  The adrenaline is gone now.  His body is buried.  The service is over.  The flowers have wilted.  The outpouring of love and support has understandably dwindled.  And now, I see it—the huge, gaping, empty hole where he lived so full of life—so time-consuming and demanding in his own way.  Not the way I wished, of course, because he wasn’t here in our home, but the thinking of him and dreaming about him and driving to and from the hospital and the time I spent with him and the nurses and doctors and hospital workers who were as close to friends as they were allowed to be.  Now they’re all gone.  My friends at the security desk and in the parking garage booth.  I miss them.  But mostly, I miss him.  And my heart hurts and aches and cries and screams.  I focused so much on what Timothy gained two weeks ago, and I am only just now realizing how much we lost.  And how we can never get it back.  He was perfect for us.  We knew that from the start.  Everything about him was perfect for our family.  You told me that we “can NEVER adopt the wrong child,” and You were right.  

But now he’s gone. The black hair; the soft, dark skin; the sweet temperament; the smart, quick-thinking, determined little boy who was going to grow up here is gone.  I have just now realized how very uniquely You made each of us—completely and utterly irreplaceable—every last one of us.  How did I not see it before?  No two alike—like snowflakes—but a little too much like snowflakes because snowflakes melt and disappear and never come back.  Just like little baby boys sometimes.  Snowflakes melt. And people die.  And it is the same really—only no one cries and mourns over the snowflakes.

I told a friend just a short month ago that I know how to do surgeries and hospitals and disabilities, but I don’t know how to do grief or death or dying.  I guess I shouldn’t have said that—almost like praying for patience.  Well, I don’t want any more patience, God, and I sure don’t want to know grief either.  I was happy in my blissful ignorance.  But You never called us to be happy, only to trust You and trust You, I will.

Oh, Mighty Comforter—Healer—Giver of Peace, come and soothe my soul and mend my broken heart! You, who knows how it feels to lose a Son.  You, who created the snowflakes and the baby boys, even though they eventually melt and die, sometimes way too soon.  You, who wipes the tears of those who grieve.  It is in Your name I pray…in Your name I trust…in Your name I hope.  Amen.”  (May 29, 2013)

Through it all—the frantic drive to the hospital, the agonizing two day fight for life, the numb activity of the days that followed death, and the days of waking up to the reality of loss—hope was the one constancy.

The world would have you believe that hope depends on the outcome of the circumstances that precipitated its need.  However, that mindset misunderstands the nature of hope.  Hope is not a dependent entity that exists only under specific circumstances.

Viktor Frankl, a Jewish psychiatrist who spent three years in a Nazi concentration camp later wrote about those experiences in a book called Man’s Search for Meaning.  In that book, Frankl argued that the difference between those who survived the camp and those who did not was that the survivors found meaning in the most dismal of circumstances.  Frankl concluded that “[e]verything can be taken from a man but one thing:  the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s way.”

For a Christ-follower, that attitude is an unshakeable hope in the promises and person of God.

Corrie ten Boom, who not only survived a Nazi concentration camp but used the experience to teach timeless messages of forgiveness and healing, titled her memoir The Hiding Place, both in reference to her family’s home that hid and saved the lives of many Jews and to a passage from the book of Psalms: “You are my hiding place and my shield; I hope in your word.” (Psalm 119:14, ESV)  Reading that memoir leaves no doubt that Corrie’s hope in His word fueled her survival in unthinkable conditions and that sharing that hope with fellow prisoners gave Corrie the meaning of which Frankl wrote.

In Scripture, Job is a man enduring the most dismal of circumstances.  He has lost his home, his possessions, his health, and all of his children.  Interestingly, a word search shows 21 verses in the book of Job in which “hope” is mentioned.  After 37 chapters of lament from Job and very bad counsel from three of his friends, God appears on the scene in a whirlwind and speaks truth into this situation.  His lengthy answer to Job includes some of the most powerful rhetoric in all of Scripture:  “Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth?…Have you commanded the morning since your days began, and caused the dawn to know its place…Have you entered into the springs of the sea or walked in the recesses of the deep?…Have you entered the storehouses of the snow, or have you seen the storehouses of the hail…Can you send forth lightnings, that they may go and say to you, ‘Here we are’?…Is it by your command that the eagle mounts up and makes his nest on high?” (Job 38:4a, 12, 16, 32, 35; 39:27, ESV)

Two chapters later, God instructs Job: “Behold, the hope of a man is false; he is laid low even at the sight of him…Who then is he who can stand before me?  Who has first given to me, that I should repay him?  Whatever is under the whole heaven is mine.” (Job 41:9-10, ESV)

Contrary to what the world may say, hope is not a wish for a specific outcome of a specific circumstance. It is not dependent on that outcome transpiring. No man or woman has the capacity to give you hope or to take it from you. Instead, hope is an absolute confidence in the promises and person of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit who reign over everything “under the whole heaven.”

“My hope is in you, God.  I am steadfast, I will not be moved. I’m anchored, never shaken. All my hope is in you.”

  

“Put not your trust in princes, in a son of man, in whom there is no salvation.

When his breath departs, he returns to the earth; on that very day his plans perish.

Blessed is he whose help is the God of Jacob, whose hope is in the Lord his God,

who made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them,

who keeps faith forever”  (Psalm 146:3-6, ESV)