I always thought hope was just a warm vague feeling. The excitement you get just before your birthday. There was a hope, a feeling of excitement and anticipation of the exam results. These feelings of expectations and desires lingered for some time and then disappeared. But when I got a glimpse into a special friends life, my thoughts about hope changed. It was then that I realized what hope really meant. Hope was something bigger than the excitement of getting a birthday gift. Hope was something bigger than knowing that you passed your exams with better marks than someone else. Looking into Sam's life, I realized hope is something you wait upon with all your faith, trusting that you will have it one day or the other.
Last year, Sam’s entire life changed. His plans for the future and present came crashing down when he realized cancer was eating his mother in bits and pieces every day. The "C" word usually carries with it a cloud of gloom and uncertainty of the surprises life can throw at someone. Like a shot, it fills life with hopelessness, persuading you to make Mr. Despondence, your closest pal. Cancer to a loved one and it makes your limb go week. So much that you have no strength left to gather the dreams and hopes of the future, the thousand promises and the streams of laughter lay scattered on the ground in front of you. "Why me?" "Why us?" you fall to your knee and scream, "Why not someone else?" and the shattered pieces of the mirror reflects a thousand beads of anger, betrayal and surrender. It was no different for Sam. Fear gripped him in its darkness freezing his thoughts and draining his strength. He saw his mother get week every hour. He saw her loose her hair and see her reduce to bones and amidst this is when I realized what hope really was.
Sam hoped for his mother's health. He hoped for his mother’s pain to disappear. He hoped for her to get back to looking the way she looked and he hoped for it with all the faith and trust he had.
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He hoped that his mother will get okay and went down on his knees with the hope. He read up everything Bible said about healing. Not only did he believe and put all his hope into the words the Bible spoke but practiced it. He preached it and was a walking demonstration of hope.Hope is something that you so desire that you put every breath you have into believing that you will get it. Hope is commanding your mind into believing what you desire. It is putting your body into working to get what you desire. Today Sam’s mother walks cancer free and his entire family displays an expanse of hope and optimism. Weather it was Sam’s faith that gave him hope or, hope that gave him that faith is something I am yet to understand but Sam, defined hope.
I have realized that hope is not merely an excitement of fulfilling your desires for something, but an action lead by faith and trust.
