Are suffering and hope mutually exclusive?

the monthly letter

Are suffering and hope mutually exclusive?

They were when I was in my twenties and the world hadn't yet tilted.

(They were when mine began to tilt.)

My friends had big dreams and visions for their lives back then — some transforming their communities (literally) and others transforming their churches. I had friends starting NGOs and others starting schools and still others launching ministries.

In those days, you were hope-full and dream-filled — or you weren't. And those who weren't were nursing their injuries, like Nancy Kerrigan, who was no longer in the running for gold—former Olympians.

Then, in my thirties, when we'd lived long enough that the tiny pool in which I had found myself of people who knew thwarted dreams — me, with my infertility— had expanded to include many more of my peers, I started to notice that the hope-full suffered. What a strange thing; I thought they were impervious — the silver spoon brand of Christians. But they got hit with hard, too. The ones brimming with dreams and vision and life expectancy were faced with a new conundrum: how do hope and suffering co-exist?

I thought maybe they could exist together, but the teeter-totter of my emotions made me hope-filled when I felt strong and anxious when I faced pain.

It's only now, after more loss that has felt unprecedented for me (though I know others have had much more than me), that I am beginning to think one must precede the other.

Which do you think has to go first?

Just a few hours ago, I saw it in real life.

Such a small thing ricocheted around my mind: I took a wrong turn right into some construction as I drove my little people to their piano lessons. Because of the angle of my car, where we were headed, and the placement of the road that was closed and the cones indicating the closure, it was unclear if I could go straight or if I needed to turn. It took me a minute at the stop sign to figure it out, all while a gentleman wearing AirPods, a fluorescent vest, and holding a sign that said "STOP" on one side and "SLOW" on the other waved angrily at me. He scolded me with his eyes like a father whose daughter had run the car right into the garage door and waved me forward, exasperated.

The bad news was that I actually had to turn around and return to the street from where I'd come. This meant I'd pass him again. The second time, he was furious at my existence. Flailing his arms, yelling as if I could hear him, and shaking his head in grave disappointment, he apparently didn't need the "STOP" or "SLOW" sign. Shame did the trick. For about one minute, I felt like a caught schoolgirl playing hooky. My heart rate spiked, and I didn't make eye contact as I passed him.

And then I saw him.

I mean, I really saw him.

I knew that look.

He was hopeless.

Sure, he acted angry and deserved to be reprimanded for being so furious within his job. But I’ve lived near enough anger to know that one of its driving forces is … hopelessness. I couldn't help but wonder what made him void of hope.

Did his wife just die, or perhaps he lost the job he loved, and this was a new career he didn't choose? Maybe his son ran away, or he was $100 shy on cash flow this month. Did his car break down … again?

We can blame a whole host of things for our hopelessness, but I wonder if the hope of our youthful twenties isn't really hope at all.

I wonder if God has us all on a path to find real hope (if we’ll let Him).

I've been dancing around these verses in Romans for the last year — they are near to me:

"Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope,  and hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us." (Romans 5:3-5)

I say "dancing around" because I hadn't embraced them, but I'd just noticed them.

You see, most days, I hated my pain, so I'd be stuck there on that first verse. (I think those who don't hate their pain are probably either 75 and have lived a lot of life, or they're just lying 😉).

But somewhere in the background, these words have climbed up and into my world. They moved from Truth to truth.

I am on my way to being one of the hope-filled ones. I am on my way to True hope.

Because, I'm not sure if you can taste hope — real hope — if you haven't known pain.

So welcome to the club. It's the club of the eventual, one-day-maybe-soon-will-be hope-full.

You might think you shouldn't have even read this far because your "suffering" is more like a chronic sinus infection or working under an impenetrably dictatorial boss. You haven't lost a loved one, a job, or a house. But, friends, He uses all sorts of trials to find us.

And this club, it's for you.

The Eventual Hope-full might, now, look like the angry highway maintenance technicians or your cynical friend. They may look like ones with more questions than answers, wondering where God is amid this dripping loss. They may not have dreams or visions for their lives right now (and that's ok).

They might look like you.

But if they're struggling (suffering, in pain … you choose your word) and they are ever-so-slowly opening their hearts and minds to what He might do with it … hope (True hope and true hope) is on the way. All it requires is a choice to accept the process. To accept God’s process.

The loss Nate and I have walked through gives us reason to brace ourselves for when the other shoe will drop. You know this kind of living (I know you do): the "surely what's around the corner cannot be good" kind of living.

And yet slowly (ever so slowly), I find myself … hope-full. Not for weeks without interruption, or even days without interruption, but for longer-than-they-used-to-be stretches of time, I've noticed something inside of me has changed.

It's not because I started a dream journal or I had a vision session with a coach.

I didn't push this or reach for it or make it happen, I just let Him work something in me as I cried through these last years and prayed short prayers for "help."

Today, that highway maintenance worker is in the middle of a process. He can choose to accept it or not.

My friend who just got a diagnosis … in a process.

Myself and Nate and my neighbor … in a process.

Your pain isn’t end of the story nor the end of that process.

But hope is.

Until next month,

Sara