With each new wait and each new hope, the one before becomes less significant. How could we have hoped and prayed for the perfect college when it was really our first job that is so critical? How could we have worried about a healthy baby when it is now test results that seem so vital? Perspective comes with each new time of waiting and ours came most clearly when our teenage son was in a terrible car accident. Waiting and hoping was taken to an entirely new level as we prayed over the days for him to emerge from a coma. Thomas’ accident occurred the morning following Ash Wednesday and we spent the season of Lent that year hoping. We didn’t think of “giving up” something, we just wanted something back. We wanted back his smile, his laughter and his loving spirit.
We were facing some frightening odds as a family when we were told Thomas had a less than 10% chance of ever waking and even less than that of ever living a normal life if he did. Hope seemed at times just beyond our grasp but there was an incredible thing going on just up the road. The Psalmist writes, “I lift mine eyes to the hills from whence cometh my help” and I am certain he didn’t mean Morehead Street at the time. However, from CMC Covenant is literally up the hill and I thought of that verse many times in the weeks to come. For “from the hill” came cards, letters, visits, meals, music and so many prayers. At times those prayers felt like a tangible presence – perhaps the arms of Christ surrounding us and lifting us up and hoping for us when hope itself seemed so very distant.
The incredible thing about a family of faith is that they can act as intercessors on your behalf when you cannot quite see your way to hope. There are times when life seems too much and hope too far away. That is when God sends his angels that “you might not strike your foot upon a stone.” Not that we will be protected from trials, but that we will not face them alone. During that time in the hospital a friend gave me quote by Mother Theresa that says, “There is a light in this world, a healing spirit more powerful than any darkness we may encounter. We sometimes lose sight of this force when there is suffering, too much pain. Then suddenly, the spirit will emerge through the lives of ordinary people who hear a call and answer in extraordinary ways.” This force or spirit that emerges through God’s people is hope. Not always hope that all will be perfect or as it was before, but hope that we can make it through the waiting. Hope that with the love and support of others we can get to the other side of whatever struggles may be put in our path. Some people have said that we got an Easter miracle that year as Thomas began walking and talking on Good Friday after many days of being still and silent. However, our Easter miracle may have been working through us all along throughout Lent. During our season of waiting, God sent his angels to minister to us, to pray for us, to love us, to give us hope.
