Hope deferred...

Hoping for Hope…(Proverbs 13:12)

“This is it?” “This is what it all comes to?…an enormous world of hope catapulted into the reality of a small world of accomplishment…but accomplishment it was. Education. Service. The thrill of and for life brought some degree of satisfaction and, in the beginning, had somehow painted a picture of more than this….”

Is this what was in her heart?

She was well dressed. And I surmised that she, once a lady of adequate means, knew of the finer graces that trademarked her generation. A multi – colored plaid skirt. A once pressed but wrinkled from wear white blouse. One intentionally well placed sequined hair pin held a partially combed wisp of hair just above her forehead. Nylon hose wrapped each leg and ended in neatly tied gray loafers.

Of course, I could not hear her thoughts or know of her background. We saw her, alone, in a wheel chair, as Gayle and I waited in a doctor’s office patient lounge. We guessed she was waiting to be picked up from her appointment and I was waiting for mine.  It was if I could hear her thoughts however. I studied her demeanor; noticed the hollow sadness in her eyes; and the seeming discontent expressed by a gaze not connected to anything but time and space which had served to rob her of dignity and respectability. Perhaps the sadness was accentuated by the realization that the care she once provided to and for others was now a distant memory as she was forced by that same thief, time and space, to be the recipient of care. We were only eight feet apart but it seemed, at least, for that moment, that we were much closer; almost connected in perhaps painful, unexplainable ways.

When my appointment with the doctor was over she was gone from the waiting room. I am sure I will never see her again but that lonely figure, as I came to realize, spoke much more to my own situation than she did of her own – at least what I perceived her situation to be. What I thought I knew of her was merely a series of thoughts based on what I imagined. What I saw in her and the thoughts that flooded my heart were very real.  It was an unsettled voice deep within my own heart that shouted in silence, “This is it?” “This is the sum – total of my days?” 

Years of service, all be them minimal and provided with a great sense of awe and gratitude, now lost to memory alone as the trees that were seemingly barren of fruit did not even provide shade from the scorching sun of reality under which I found myself.

What had been perceived as a “calling” on my life and accompanied by frequent reminders that the fulfillment of dreams of just how that “calling” would manifest itself lay just beyond closed doors. Those doors, remain securely locked in their place. In sight, but always out of reach. Seen through shadowy images of what could be but never realized. Chronic illness robbing not only health and presenting themselves like nails in a coffin. Hopes and dreams die but until the coffin is shut tight, there is a pathway for those hopes and dreams to be fulfilled. It seems the lid has shut and nails seem to be that which prevents the hopes and dreams of and for life from ever seeing the light of day.

There was one other similarity between the woman I saw in the doctor’s office. She was alone. She may have a host of friends and family that were there for her, but for that moment, she was alone. An added fearful trial when hopes and dreams begin to fade is when one feels they are alone. Few call, or communicate in other ways, not just to touch base, but to share the life-giving Word accompanied by prayer.  When one has been strong, or, at least appeared to be strong, all of one’s life, it is probably assumed that even when hopes and dreams begin to fade, hope, and help is not needed. Nothing could be further from the truth.