PART II: Hope

PART II: Hope

The thing about this story is that I have been that man laying on a mat unable to move. So when I read this story, I understand what this man probably had been through, the years of pain, the questions that probably ran through his mind, the despair, the years of slowly accepting his circumstances. This week though, I couldn’t help but think about how he felt the moment his friends started lowering him towards Jesus. Maybe, for the first time in years (Bible doesn’s say how long it had been) he had a new sense of hope. As time had gone on, his sense of hope had probably diminished. Now at this moment, he was feet away from the Healer. What a renewed feeling he must have had at that very moment. Hope renewed. While, I don’t know what was going through his mind, I do remember a time that I myself was in a very similar situation. It had been 10 days since my accident. The top rehab hospital in the world didn’t have room for me. I was almost turned away, when I got a phone late that night saying a bed had just opened up but I had to be in Chicago at the hospital by 7 am the next morning (that was 10 hrs. away). Somehow an ambulance was available to transfer me that next morning. Hope renewed. Then upon arriving at this foreign scary place, surrounded by paraplegics, quadriplegics, and amputees, I was carried in on a stretcher by the EMT’s. I was scared, humiliated to be associated with these people, and yet in the midst of being carried in by two EMT’s, I looked up at the wall and there was Jesus. Not physically, but written on the wall was this Bible verse that echoed the voice of a paraplegic: “There is hope for a tree, if it is cut down, it will sprout again, and it’s new shoots will not fail…” Job 14:7-8. Hope renewed. Yeh, I’ve been that paraplegic that was lowered through the roof. I know the pure hope and joy that he felt at the moment, when he was so close to the one person who could heal him. Hope renewed.

These two words have been on my heart lately. So many things I hoped would have happened in my life already. That’s when I’ve realized that my hope is being built on far less that Christ this week (well more than just this week). I echo the voice of a friend “ So often I’ve made plans, held dear to dreams, prided myself on accomplishments, hoping these worldly pick me ups would cause peace. Reality of it is that they do not satisfy and I fall into a valley of despair until another hero/fix comes around. “ Oh how true this is of me. This story in Luke has made me really ask myself “Ang, what is your hope built upon?”