Hope Deferred

Hope deferred makes the heart sick – Proverbs 13:12

I remember the moment I lost the will to live… Like a brittle branch snapping in the cold wind, the moment that my heart shattered is forever etched in the recesses of my mind.

It was late fall, and I knew Sam was dying. His movements were slowing, my false contractions were picking up & I just felt that our time together was about to come to a close. It was a dark time for me – I couldn’t stop crying most days, smiling felt like an effort. I’d laugh at a jokes (usually an empty, hollow sound) and then feel guilty for laughing. As someone who had formerly identified as the bright spot of sunshine in a room & annoying optimist, it was a morbid turn of existence for sure.

But mostly, I was surviving. Until that moment:

I was scrolling Facebook mindlessly and saw a post for grieving moms, posted with well intentions in a support group. It showed a statue with a missing hole in its chest, and the caption said (with many words more elegant than mine) –

“The grieving parent is never the same. We may learn to deal, laugh, heal our hearts as much as we can. But we will always live with the pain, and we will never be the same. We just learn to hide the pain deeper and live with it. A broken heart still beats, but it is broken nonetheless forever by the passing of our child”

I couldn’t breathe. Here was a mother, who had lost her child, telling me that this pain that was slowly eating me, was going to get worse and never leave. That for the rest of my life, this tragedy would forever scar my personality and limit my joy.

Shortly thereafter, I stood in the bathroom looking down at the sleeping pills in my hand, wondering how many I’d have to take to make the pain stop.

Hope is a powerful thing, my friend. We need it to survive and thrive; to get back up when life pushes us down and to dare to try again despite bone-crushing failures and defeats. And when we lose hope, we lose the very energy that keeps our human hearts beating.

Obviously, I didn’t take those pills. I went straight to my husband, who (bless him) took me straight to a godly counselor. That one was brave enough to look in my eyes and say “What you’re enduring is a tragedy. Your whole year has been a series of tragedies. But, it might just be the worst year of your entire life. And you might live another 50 years and not ever have another one as bad as this one”. (For more on our story, see When God Says “No”)

I know, not much of a pep talk; He didn’t give me any huge promises or sharp-edged scripture. But the “might” was just enough of a spark of hope to push me through those days and months ahead. It reignited my belief in a more beautiful future and healing & helped me set my eyes back where they belonged – on the face of my Savior.

Now, almost three years later into that beautiful future, let me try to ignite that same spark in your weary soul:

Your tragedies and heartbreaks do not define you. This breaking and unmaking is working something worthwhile and beautiful in your life and spirit, if only you will let it. You get to chose – you’re the captain of your fate in this one thing: “Will I let this pain overtake me? Or will I choose to believe and hope in a restoration ahead?” You make the choice. And when you choose hope, God gives a dose of healing right along side.

Let’s be fair, I still miss my son. But not everyday. And that doesn’t make me cold-hearted or a bad mother – It simply makes me human. Sometimes memories hit me unexpectedly, or grief once again makes a brief visit, and feelings of melancholy can slip in. But oftentimes, most times, I can smile & whisper “I can’t wait to see you one day”. And then I can choose to believe that he hears me.

I laugh as loud (if not louder) than before, I feel everything deeper (including gratitude and joy), and I can say with 💯 confidence that I am a better human because of what that little year of horrors wrought in my life.

And you will be to.

Because God doesn’t call us into deep waters to watch us drown. He does it to show us our own faith and His love. To work unbelievable things in our lives and in the lives of those around us.

If only we can hold on to hope. And His precious, gentle hand.

With love,
Kelsey