The Indestructible Hope

I was thinking about what I was going to blog about today, and the word “hope” kept running through my mind.

To me, hope is critical to life, especially a life that has meaning and purpose. Having been through so many difficulties in my life, I know I would be long gone if it were not for the hope God has instilled in me through my obstacles.

Hope is finding joy, truth and meaning in the obstacles of life. Hope is finding the light in the darkness in this world and in our individual lives. Hope is holding on to the promises of God, even when everything around us looks dim. It is that part of our soul that yearns for more of God, for more meaning. It is the part within us that cries out for God in desperation, holding on to His outstretched arms, waiting for answers to our prayers.

Growing up, my hope was that God would reveal Himself to me and help me to rise above my family situation. I prayed thousands of prayers asking Him to help me and guide me through the difficult times. I said thousands of prayers asking for God to help my family members.

My oldest brother, Michael, and I were close as children. He loved to take care of me as a baby.

We played countless hours of video games. My brothers absolutely loved to watch the Simpsons, especially during dinner time, which my mother did not really like or agree with. But my brothers watched it anyway.

I grew up with an acre of woods behind my home and we lived on a mountain, so our backyard was very steep. When it snowed, my brothers and I loved to sled down the mountain. We also used to swing on vines from the trees, twenty feet or so off the ground.

Mike especially loved to pull pranks on my other brother and I. When the Y2K bug was happening during the switch to the next millennium, my family gathered in front of the TV to watch the ball drop in New York City on New Years Eve. Mike slipped out of the room right before the countdown to supposedly go to the bathroom. We started to  count down and when it got to 1, all of the power in our home went out. My mother, other brother and I were very nervous and started to panic. Maybe the Y2K bug was real! Maybe the world really is ending!, we thought. Mike then turned all the power back  on, coming up from the basement with a huge smile on his face, laughing.

Mike loved trains. He worked at a train store. He built a whole village in our basement, with a train set that went through the village. During Christmas time, Mike used to set up a train set to go around the bottom of the tree. Countless hours were spent watching Santa go by in the train, around and around the bottom of the tree.

But...

The trains began to disappear. 

Mike started to forge checks and steal money. 

He got in trouble at his work. 

He eventually dropped out of high school. 

The brother I once knew left home. 

Numerous arguments between my mother and him occurred. 

Walls in the house were punched. 

Threats of breaking windows were made.

He was placed in an adult school at another high school at night. My mother and I went to drop him off in the dark of night. 

Then came the day when we found out that he skipped that school in order to hang out with friends.

Mike got involved with drugs big time. He started dealing. Every so often, my mother told me he was in this jail, that jail, this prison, that prison. The jail visits became so numerous that I lost count.

I felt like I lost Mike long before he committed suicide in 2007. The laughing, fun, exciting brother that I knew from my childhood became someone who was dealing drugs, who threatened people, stole from people. Marijuana, crack, heroin, ecstacy and countless other names of drugs became common terms in my home.

For years, I hoped, along with my mother, that Mike would quit doing and dealing drugs. We hoped against all hope that he would turn around. Many countless prayers were said, asking God to help him stop.

But Mike is gone.

Does that mean that God did not answer my prayers, that my hopes were not fulfilled?

Not necessarily.

I miss Mike all the time. Even though he abused me at various points while growing up, it was not entirely his fault. I understood that and I have forgiven him.

Because Mike died, a lot of my external family, which had argued and avoided each other until 2007, came together to mourn Mike’s death. Out of his death, my family united in an amazing way.

Since then, my mother and other brother have overcome their addictions as well. Mike’s death has made us all stronger than we were before. His death helped me to make a choice not to do drugs, deal drugs or drink alcohol. After his death, I gave speeches to students in different classes about not doing drugs. His death gave me the motivation I needed to get through college, something that I always hoped that I would do.

The point that I am trying to make is that sometimes we hope in things, but God may answer our hopes and our prayers differently than we expected. But we still need to have hope. We still need to try to make our dreams and our hopes become reality. Some hope for complete healing and they may not be completely healed. That does not mean that God is not working in their life in some way. It does not mean that God is ignoring us at all. It means that it may not be the right time.

Hope is that part of us that looks to the bright future which God has planned for us. Everything we hope for may not happen in this lifetime, but we are promised great things in our eternal life. That's why we strive to be as hopeful as we can be in this life. That's why we are motivated to make our dreams come true and give meaning to our lives. 

To me, there is no other choice than to be hopeful, especially in this world so full of confusion and darkness. We must not allow seemingly unanswered prayers stop us from hoping in great things.

"Hope deferred maketh the heart sick"

-Proverbs 13:12a (KJV)