Last week I visited a friend and found him in a state. He has been fighting cancer for quite some time. He looked at me and said, "I've given up hope." I put my arms around him and said, "No, my friend, there are two hopes. You've given up hope of healing in this world. You still have the best hope which is that you will be face to face with Jesus." I believe that, though I don't know quite where the words came from.
I am grateful that there is hope beyond this life. In this world which is so damaged from the ravages and consequences of sin entering into it, there are often things which cause moments of depression and despair. When I hear that a lady from church has gone home to die, having refused any further cancer treatments, and will leave her grief-stricken husband and daughters, I am broken. When another friend is having an impossibly difficult pregnancy, when a friend's daughter has an inoperable brain tumor at the age of 16, when my father moans from the dreadful pain of stenosis, when I stop to think about the 17+ years of pain I have had, I grow weary and despondent. I refuse to wallow there, but I get there for certain.
Today has been a hard day, sitting in hospice with a friend. He is longing for a swift and speedy end. He asked me to pray for a coma. Some of the health care workers seem to think he has more painful lingering to do. Oh, how I long for him to see his hope fulfilled. I long to know that he is seeing Jesus face to face. And yet, if it were my will, I would long to have him with us for years to come.
I have not seen my hopes for him in this world fulfilled. I am certain that his hopes for the next will be.
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