Hope

By Sara Hunter

“And not only that, but we also glory in tribulations, knowing that tribulation produces perseverance; and perseverance character; and character, hope. Now hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us.” Romans 5:3–5

Hope is one of the greatest gifts that God has given us.

Life can be messy sometimes – often complicated and painful. We all endure pain and difficulties, but we all can have hope because of God.

He has given us hope for a future. In Jeremiah 29:11, God says, “For I know the thoughts that I think towards you, says the LORD, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope.” God is speaking to the Israelites at this moment because they are captives of the Babylonians. He promises them that they will have hope. He tells them that after 70 years they will get to return to Jerusalem. That would have given them great hope.

God also tells them in verses 12 and 13, “Then you will call upon Me and go and pray to Me, and I will listen to you. And you will seek Me and you will find Me, when you search for Me with all your heart.” How wonderful it is that we can have hope in Jesus, that we can seek Him and find Him with our hearts. That alone is enough hope to sustain us.

Just knowing that Jesus is present in our trials and tribulations and that He carries us through them makes me feel so hopeful.

In my early twenties, I began noticing some unusual symptoms in my body. I had worn contacts for years, but my eyes were so irritated and dry that wearing them for more than two hours was very uncomfortable. I had joint pain in my hands and shoulders that seemed excessive for someone in their twenties. When I got cold, my toes would turn white and go numb. I have several family members who have autoimmune diseases, and I suspected that there might be a connection. I mentioned all of these symptoms at different points to my doctor and was told it was basically nothing and not to worry about it. But the symptoms persisted throughout the years and I just knew it wasn’t nothing.

About 15 years later, I finally switched doctors, and my new doctor was willing to listen to my concerns.  We did some bloodwork and she told me that my bloodwork showed signs of an autoimmune disease called “scleroderma.”  But the blood test wasn’t enough for a diagnosis so I needed to see a rheumatologist. It took two different rheumatologists to get an official diagnosis of scleroderma.

When the doctor gave me the diagnosis, he had tears in his eyes. A doctor’s job is to heal, but this disease can’t be healed with modern medicine and I could tell he was frustrated and did not want to give me the diagnosis. He told me, “I won’t put your diagnosis in your medical record until I absolutely have to. Insurance companies often won’t cover services for this diagnosis and you won’t qualify for life insurance.” He also said, “If you had rheumatoid arthritis, I have medicine for that, lots of choices, but for this, I have no medicine. There is no treatment and no cure.” I was shocked. I knew something was wrong, but to get a diagnosis that told me basically that I had a shortened lifespan and a disease that had no options for treatment was devastating. Scleroderma often has mild symptoms, but it can have dangerous and often fatal complications. It can affect your skin, heart, lungs, kidneys, or digestive system. 

It has taken me years even to be able to talk about this diagnosis, let alone ask God for healing. It still is difficult to think about when I put it in human terms, because if I only could rely on the current medicines, the fear of this disease would overtake me. Modern medicine and the advancements that we have made have given hope to so many people, and medical miracles happen all of the time. We live in a world where there are so many treatments and cures for diseases that were once deadly. So I think when you find a diagnosis like this that medicine has not caught up to yet, it’s easy to fall into despair.

If I only had to rely on human cures to heal me from this disease, there would not be much hope. But that’s the amazing thing about being a follower of Jesus. There is so much hope in His ability to heal and so much hope just in believing in Him. 

I have hope because I believe in a BIG God. A God who created the universe and everything in it. A God who can heal an incurable disease for a woman who just touches the hem of Jesus’ garment (Mark 5:25-34).

There is so much evidence in the Bible and in our current world that miracles happen, and they show us how big our God is.

One morning I was worrying about several things that were not in my control. I was carrying burdens that did not belong to me. I sat down to pray and I had this vision of a very large boulder being placed on my back. It was weighing me down so much that I was bent in half. But then I saw a giant finger come down from the sky. That finger just quickly lifted the boulder off of my back as if it was nothing. That is how easy it is for God to take our burdens. This object that was crippling me was so easy for Him to remove. When you believe in a God that is that large and capable, then there is so much hope! Any burden, such as an incurable disease weighing you down, can easily be removed by Him. I know I can have hope for a future because of the promises of God. Just knowing that I can even ask God to heal me from the diagnosis of this incurable, untreatable disease gives me hope.

I heard once that God brings about physical healing in one of three ways. The first is through medicine, the other is through miraculous healings, and the other is through healing in Heaven. We as believers can all have hope in the promise of full healing in Heaven. But one of the great promises that God has given me is found in the Psalms. This particular verse was prophesied over me by a fellow believer. In Psalms 27, David says, “I would have lost heart, unless I had believed that I would see the goodness of the LORD in the land of the living.” I have hope that I will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. I have hope that my healing will come on this side of Heaven. But even if I did not believe in the fulfillment of this prophecy of complete healing on earth, the hope that I have in Him is enough to sustain me.

Hope is one of the greatest gifts that He has given us. We could be weighed down by worries for our future, worries about the tribulations that the world is going through. But we know the Lord has promised us hope, as shown in Jeremiah 29:11. We do not need to be worried about our future and the tribulations of the world. Jesus himself tells us not to be troubled (Matthew 24:6).

We as Christians know that Jesus is coming back. We know the end is written and God is victorious. We have a glorious future to look forward to. When Jesus returns there will be no more sorrow, no more pain, and He Himself will wipe away our tears.

We can choose to live under the burdens of this world or we can choose to live under the hope promised to us through Jesus.