Hope

"So..."  My dear friend pauses and her voice is steady.  "The doctors confirmed, it IS cancer.  I'm supposed to go in for surgery next week."

I inhale sharply.  I've been waiting for this news.  Hoping this wouldn't BE her news.  But I put on my high-pitch brave voice and reply, "Ok.  Thanks for letting me know.  I'm praying.  Are you ok?"  A few other details emerge.
"I'll be ok."
"Ok. I love you."  Why do we keep saying ok, when things are clearly NOT ok?
"I love you too."
We hang up the phone.  I make a b line for my bed, pull the covers over my head and curl into a ball.  I let my mind spin and swirl.

Prayers.  We're going to need prayers.  I shoot out a text to my most trusted prayer partners.  I feel sick.  What does this mean? What does the future hold?  I don't WANT to go through this.

My phone rings.  I reject it.  I can't talk right now.  I don't want to talk.

Moments later I hear a knock at the door.  When I open it, my best friend is standing there, fighting back her own tears and says "I don't want you to be alone right now."  I fall into her arms sobbing.  She cries with me.  We hold each other, crying.  We stay that way, vulnerable in our humanity and tears, until one of my kids walks by and says as only children can, "Why are you guys crying?"  We laugh, because we know we must look like crazy people right now.  We stumble through the next few minutes, hug one last time, and say goodbye.  She leaves and I am both grateful for her and afraid.  Morbidly I wonder, "What if I lose her too?"

I retreat to my bed and curl back into my ball. This world just keeps on turning and everything is changing.  I don't want to love because I don't want to lose.  It'd be so much easier to stay here under the covers than to love and lose.  The tears continue to fall from my face and soak my pillow.

"Where are you God?  Where are you in THIS?"  My heart aches with anger and visceral sadness.  I'm not ready to go through yet another trial.  Things are just now settling down with our adopted son...A two year intense battle with more lows than highs.  We are just now starting to feel like normal people again.

A scene fills my mind.  It's the last scene from Disney's Beauty and the Beast.  The war has just been waged and the Beast is down.  Belle leans over him, crying.  It's over.  The battle was fought hard.  And the Beast is now dead.  Belle quietly whispers "I love you" as a single tear falls from her face.  She closes her eyes and continues to cry.

Then.  A single shard of light hits the ground like rain.  It sounds like hope. Then another.  It finally causes her to look up.  Then another, and another.  She lifts her head and the light-rain is now falling all around her.  When she looks at the Beast, he is no longer there, but is being transformed into a man.  The music builds as he turns around and reveals himself in all his glory.  She knows him but she isn't sure.  Is it him?

She squints in uncertainty and touches his face.  It IS him!  She knows him by the familiarity in his eyes.  As if truth is finally unveiling, Belle now begins to realize that all along she was an integral piece of the story.  Suddenly the castle is transformed.  What was once a rainy and dark scene against a dingy rock backdrop with evil gargoyles standing watch suddenly becomes light and beauty and white and angelic.  The music is celebratory as the characters in the story are magically transformed into their truest selves.  The spell has been broken!  Everything is back to the way it SHOULD be and there is a feast and a party waiting for them.

The scene fades out and my thoughts return to reality.  I hear my dear Father whisper into my thoughts, "Things are not yet as they should be."  I feel His comfort.  This world is NOT my home.  It is deeply broken.  There is sadness, fear, disaster, and pain all around.

Will I fight? Or will I stay in this bed and hide?  Do I believe that I serve a God who will one day transform the "castle"?  The God who will one day reveal what's most true about this world and all of us?  Should I be surprised that I live in a broken world and that I am, gasp, seeing brokenness?  Do I still believe there is hope?  That there is a celebration a comin', where all will be as it is meant to be?  That THAT is my future?  And I just can't see it yet?

I pull out my laptop and do a Youtube search for this scene.  I watch it then laugh because I happened to pull up the version where the words are dubbed in Finnish.  And a deep deep hope rises within me.

You damn right I'm gonna fight.  I'm gonna fight with every ounce that's in me.  I'm going to use the gifts God has given me and I'm going to push back the darkness with all my might.  I'm going to be courageous when I feel scared.  I'm going to love even though I might lose.  I'm going to pray and believe for miracles in the face of hopelessness.  I'm going to stand up for justice even if I'm standing alone.  Because I BELIEVE that there is a good God, and He is absolutely worth fighting with and for.  He's already won.  I just haven't gotten to the celebration part of the Story He's writing yet.

But it's coming.

It IS coming.

Until then, I will fight.

Who's with me?