This hope.

I've started this post at least a dozen times now. Writing...pausing...backspacing.
I want to be real and honest.
I want to be authentic to my faith and to my fear.
I want.. well, I want to throw a tantrum.
And not just a little dummy-spit. No. A gigantic tantrum of epic proportions.
I want to be angry at everything and everyone.
I want to scream at...something.

More backspacing just occurred.

I don't want you to read any of these words I write and be under any illusion that I'm serenely smiling a grace-filled grin of acceptance as we walk this out.
I mean...sure. I know the grace-filled moments. I actually know them well. But I'm still hurting through them.

Sheldon keeps telling me that it's one of the best part of us- that human part that longs to stay. That longs for our people to stay.
It's the part of us where hope lives.
I've been thinking a lot about hope the past few days.
So instead of me telling you all about how I just wanna smash some plates or something, let's talk about hope.


Hope is crazy.
I find faith way easier.
Faith is an unchangeable declaration that is grounded in the absolutes of a Creator God.
Faith is declaring the fact of His sovereignty, unchanged by situation.
Faith is seeing what is not yet and calling it as if it was already.
Yes.. I find faith easier.
Because hope..
Well. Hope is being right there, knee deep in the mire of misery and finding a calm assurance that all is not actually lost.
Hope
.
Hope is being up to your neck in the hurricane..
Hope is being swamped beneath the storm surge..
Hope is being tossed by the storm of cancer and still... even then.. Especially then... reaching out with both hands and grabbing hold of that all is not actually lost or over...
Being anchored to a promise that, strange as it sounds, makes this all easier.

Sheldon has taught me how to hope.
In the most practical and gentle of ways.
He has cried..alot. We both have these past few days.
And in the overwhelming grief of talking about the possibility of his leaving, I hear hope.
Hope.
Hope that there is never going to be a millisecond in this journey where we will be left alone.
Hope that a miracle is possible and on it's way.
Hope that if the miracle is eternity soon, then there's a big picture and he's played his part really well.
He teaches me everyday that his hope has never been dependant on an outcome, but rather tied to a promise. One promise.
And the promise isn't "You will never get cancer and you will live to be 103."
And the promise isn't "Do x,y and z...Viola! You have your miracle!"
No.
The promise is: "I (God, the immoveable, the eternal and the giver of breath) will never (as in not for one moment, be it in the good times, the bad times, on either side of eternity) leave you nor forsake you."
That. That right there is what my brave husband has tied himself to. The storm is raging. It's tough going. And when we talk about the unthinkable and the too sad... this is the hope that I hear. This is the anchor that keeps him.

The hope that if he lives or if he dies, he is held by God.

You might not believe that God exists.
That's for you to figure out- but know this.

There is something profoundly beautiful and hopeful in knowing that, regardless of the outcome, we are held. We are purchased with a price.
We are His.