Hanging Out With Hope

  Hope came to me in the form of a little white beach house. I was in the hospital and had a dream of a little beach house, waves crashing in the distance, big fluffy bed, no meds, no doctors, NO NEEDLES! The funny thing is that I don't usually dig the beach. The sand bugs me. I always have theatrical disaster movie nightmares of a huge tidal wave lurking along on the horizon. I have never taken a cruise for this reason. There are big, I mean really big things down there with big teeth and I am just a cocktail olive waiting to happen in their martini. And what about those ghost ships! Ok, maybe I have gone off the path a little. After I had this dream I went on a quest. Not the Indiana Jones globe trotting with a whip type. It was a trying to hold up a lap top after abdominal surgery while not looking too lame type. When I saw it I knew it was the the one. It was built in the 20's and moved to a place called Cambria, CA in 1935. It was also for rent for weekend get-aways. I had never been to Cambria and didn't even know if I would ever have the chance to go there much less rent a house by the sea. I called and rented it anyway. It gave me hope of something better to come, apart from where was at the moment.
  Isn't that what hope is? Something you haven't seen, felt, or gotten to do yet? I remember how much I didn't feel hopeful when I found out I had cancer. All I could see was the endless march of doctors and medicine and chemo. Maybe I would make it, maybe I wouldn't, I knew plenty of people who didn't. I'm no better or different than anyone else, I only know what happened to me.
  Hope started slow and it was other people who helped it along. People came to share their stories of recovery with me, stories of hope. I hung on to these words of encouragement. Some days it was all I could do to get out of bed. I figured if could just make it one more hour, one more day. Hope is a funny thing. It's kind of like a plant. It has to be watered and it needs light. The water and light are things that build you up (encouraging stories, prayers, laughter). It needs to be exposed to the elements so it won't become weak (trials of life). It needs to be pruned (get rid of useless info or discouraging remarks). Eventually it will bloom.
  Months moved along slowly. I dreamed of the little white house, of being able to touch and feel the sand on my fingers. Chemotherapy had caused me to have a side-effect called neuropathy. You can't feel your fingers and they feel burned. I hated not feeling because I do a lot of crafts. I had a specialist tell me that this would never go away. She laughed when I said I would work on it. In December of 2010 I was finished with my chemo and told that I was in remission. I had about two months until my husband and I headed to the beach. A lot of my symptoms hadn't gone away and I was discouraged but I still had hope. I prayed like crazy and am pretty sure I used up all of the request time I had with the man upstairs for the next millennium. Ok, I probably hogged up some of your time too.
  Hope works like this, it is a jewel you hold in your heart. You cannot see what you are hoping for. If you did, you would not need hope. It is faith that somehow your dream will come about. What a sad and dark place life would be without hope. Do you ever notice how people just fling it haphazardly out at you? "Hope you have a great weekend" or "Hope you fell better soon." Do they?! I don't know! I bet they haven't even given it a thought. It's like a "bless you" when you sneeze. Do you know that when you sneeze your heart stops? It's that second of time between life and death, thus the "bless you." I think we can look at hope as a matter of life or death also. Maybe next time when you visit a sick friend you can point at them and shout, "HOPE to you!" Tell them an encouraging story or hand them a Hallmark card if you are not good with words.
  The story ends like this: The little house was perfect. I could hear the waves crashing from my fluffy bed. There were no doctors in sight. As I brushed my fingers back and forth across the sand I cried. I could feel every single pebble.

"Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen."  - Hebrews 11:1

*Stay tuned I have no idea what will come next!