Hope That Does Not Disappoint

I'm going to get dressed in about 40 minutes to get ready for my ride to infusion # 4,  the grand finale for chemo Lord willing! Its been something of a moderate Disneyland ride, not a wild one but enough to throw me around and one I am ready to exit from 'to the right" as they say. Today is all about cravings, I am realizing how daily life is full of them.  When life is swirling, as it is, and even when it is much more still, I'm always looking for an emotional exit from negative thoughts to peace, from anxiety to joy, from fear to comfort...sound familiar? I like being happy, no I LOVE to be filled with joy and peace, a craving we all share I know it. If you have a sugar craving, its like the balance you feel once the chocolate is going down the hatch. If you have a person craving, its like that phone call, or awareness of being chosen, singled out, adored by the object of your desire. A thing craving might be satisfied by that new car smell, or the number in the account, or the treasure found and brought safely home. Make my cup full! Fill my cravings for joy!

Suffering, I have concluded, is something like a hole burrowed in the bottom of the joy cup. It deprives us of access to things we crave so that our joy cup can be filled, that sigh of contentment we seek. Right now I want to have my hair back and quit being the cancer patient in public, and my eyebrow and lashes would be great too. I want to run and not be wearied by the concrete that fills my legs after 30 seconds. I want to walk and not feel faint until the usual time, which is way later than the present one. I don't want anyone to have to worry about how I am doing, as sweet as it is now,  I want the joy of giving not taking, I want to pursue my goals, stop feeling bloated, etc. etc. etc.  My suffering, as small as it really is, is the absence of my ability to satisfy my cravings for things that make me feel good.

Hope Chassen  8/18/2013

This time of sickness has made me think a lot about hope, meaning what we decide will bring that joy to our lives, which makes us pursue them and depend on them, resting our hope in their ability to give us joy. My thoughts this way have been sharpened even more so since she died yesterday. It was one of those days you never forget, and because she was a pet you feel a little stupid for weeping, but you do anyhow. Hope cat came into our lives when one of our kids got sick and had to stay home for quite awhile last year. She was a true God send, a constant companion, curious observer, follower, purrer estrodinaire, and finally a mother. I thought her impacted  milk duct would loosen up by the onslaught of nursing she provided constantly to seven, and then only five, robust mini Hopes. By the time a vet had something to say about it, it was too late. She crawled away from our hot compresses and hovering, and at four am yesterday morning Ben and I both woke up and wondered if we would find her alive. There she was at our door, so we pet her all the way through her final labored breathing, and into heaven only a few minutes later. Shocked and grieved we both began to cry, for her but mostly for our child who loved her like a wild craving. We thought Hope would be a part of our lives for years to come.

(I have to run now and get ready but I will finish when I get home from the hospital!)

I'm back now. Hope and her passing have made me ponder where I have set my hope, and how transient everything is, like a beloved pet.  We all hope that people first of all can make us happy, but no one is perfect and everyone leaves us at a some point in one way or another! I hope in the joy that feeling healthy and strong gives me, but that is vulnerable indeed. I hope in the joy that my children reaching my goals for them will bring, if only I had control over it all! I hope that life will go the way I plan it, and I expect that to bring me great joy...if it would only follow my plans more. I think we are so vulnerable to the things we hope for. When they shine we smile, but when the clouds come in we're left with a joy cup half full, or even empty, and then we are suffering.  Suffering comes when we are robbed of the things we hope in to bring us joy.

So I'm thrilled to say that God promises us a hope that does not disappoint!

" Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance;  perseverance, character; and character, hope.  And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us." 

Romans 5:3-5


Suffering will pull back the coverings of your heart and expose what you hope in, which makes trials a teacher of sorts about the heart. Every tear falls from a hope longing to be refilled again while it is being emptied. I guess I can be thankful that cancer has peeled back the outer layer of my heart and made me face more clearly what I depend on, and how fully do I depend on Him or not?

If my sins are forgiven I now hold the hope of eternal life, and no one can change that.  As for the here and now, He promises that if we will trust Him in our tribulations and look to Him for love and strength to carry us through, the result will be the growth of a proven character, and that proven character will in turn provide the hope that does not disappoint.  Food, friends, success, health, beauty, power, riches, all will be compromised in some way and eventually fail to fill our joy cup, but this hope will not, the one that does not disappoint.

When we pursue Him in the good times and the bad, our hope becomes more and more attached to Him and not the transient things around us.  He gave us all good things to enjoy, but learning to love and trust Him brings hope that never disappoints. He won't fall out of love, or my investment in Him won't change with the economy, or make me fat and sick, or go through a transitional crisis and stop calling for a long time.  He alone is steady and unchanging, called the Rock of the Ages, the same yesterday, today and forever, and His love never fails.

To the degree that I do hope in the One who never disappoints, I have found strength in time of need, and often it has been through the people who are sent my way! I had to take a valium for some intense shoulder pain during the infusion today, of all things, and then the anti-nausia meds are making me sleepy now.  But getting dinner is no worry as my adorable friends Jimmy and Mehelle Johnson brought over some awesome looking bar-b-qued chicken salad with a huge tray of blueberries and strawberries for dessert. My cup is certainly filling up with a delightful, (though temporary) joy!!

And...
- for all of the reminders sent my way of promised prayers for today
- to Karla and Diana for helping me bury Hope and then feeding the kittens today while Julia and I were busy
-  for dinner last night with booty camp girls to remind me that there is something to celebrate in all of this (last one!)
-for the sweet cards and texts that keep coming
- for all the meals lined up next week for my yuck time,
-to Sharon for the ride there this morning
-to my adorable hero husband who left work to sit with me and take me home

 Thank you Lord for Your promise of a hope that will not disappoint. Thank you for this little school of suffering that exposes my heart so that I can learn to do it better.

Romans 5:2-5