The Abscence of Hope

     Depression and chronic pain.  Sometimes you'll see it written on my face, sometimes you won't.  Most often not.  Not because I am especially strong.  In fact, I'm pretty wimpy.  Wimpy and whiny.  Without even realizing it, I'm living God's will in my life, at this moment.  Don't ask me what plans he has, certainly they were not mine.  I don't fight the pain much anymore.  It ebbs and flows and I ebb and flow with it.  I used to fight the pain.  That tendency is still there.  The tendency to give up hope.  To fight the pain as I turn round and round in my head asking myself why is this happening?  The tendency to give nothing of yourself because what little you have you guard like a thief.  I HATE, and I mean HATE when I hear people say, "well who am I to judge or who are we to judge".  Moral relativism, what I think is right and true for me is, there is no objective truth, only the subjective reality of my own hearts desires, fears, pleasures.
     A rose is so beautiful.  A rose though, has thorns, and those thorns can cause pain if they prick the skin.  But, if we want the rose, we have to take the flower with the thorns, the beauty with the pain. Yes, I'm aware it seems like a cavalier attitude.  It is an attitude forged in the fire.  Tempered by constant heating and cooling.  A person with a chronic illness, or a terminal illness, or a mental illness is suffering.  Mentally, physically, emotionally suffering.  Sometimes terrifically so.  If we aren't careful we can start to identify ourselves as our illness.  When we identify ourselves as our illness all we see is fear.  We need all remember that what illness a person is suffering from is an it, a thing, it is not that person. It is a beast that will consume not just your body but your soul if we let it.  “Suffering can bend and break us. But it can also break us open to become the persons God intended us to be. It depends on what we do with the pain. If we offer it back to God, he will use it to do great things in us and through us, because suffering is fertile.” Charles Chaput
     As crazy as it sounds.  Suffering is the very fertile ground needed for love and hope to grow.   The definition of Hope is to expect with confidence.  What do we expect?   I expect in my nothingness that God's fullness is shown.  I know the world looks different for those who don't have Christ at their center.  I know it, and it saddens me.  A person devoid of hope has no joy.  No one wants to suffer.  No one goes looking for it.  No one wants to see someone they love suffer.  Ever.  That suffering calls at you though doesn't it.  It begs you to call them and comfort them.  It begs you to sit by their bedside and try to ease their pain.  It begs you to stretch your heart more than you would if everything was ok.  It begs your prayers for them and their family, showering them with graces that wouldn't be there otherwise.  It begs you to serve the other.  It compels you.  That is the value in suffering.  If compels you to serve Christ by serving the one you love.  When we suffer we participate in the salvation of those around us.  Christ saved us by giving meaning to suffering.  It's an exercise in trust, and love in our Creator to offer that suffering for others.  For God's grace to flow through our pain.  
     That is the essence of hope, and that is what is missing when there is an absence of it.