Processing....

I’ve had some bad news this week regarding Caleb. There have been lots of setbacks with him through the years but this one was especially hard, I'm not sure why.....maybe because of my new found hope. What do we do when we can’t change our children or we can’t change our circumstances? We feel like we have to change something, I guess the only thing we can really control is ourselves.

I thought I was doing really well and making some progress with the whole hope thing, but I’ve got more questions now than ever. I know the whole essence of hope is that you have it despite how grim or hard things look, you don’t bail when things get darker. Is my hope that flimsy and pathetic that it can’t make it past the first hurdle? I’m not sure where to go from here though.

I think we’ve been taught to believe that hope is based on circumstances, that what we want to happen comes to pass. Isn’t it more than that though? In a previous blog post I talked about how I didn’t have hope because I was just accepting my reality, don’t you think that has some truth to it too? What about embracing what is....and redirecting hope somewhere else? What if I didn’t attach hope to Caleb's progress anymore? It doesn’t mean that I have lost all hope for Caleb, I still hope for him, but for different things. When is it OK to close the book on hope in a certain area? I know I went on in a previous post about “hope changing the atmosphere”  and Caleb responding to that, but have I hinged too much on the circumstances part of it? Caleb tends to take 1 step forward and 2 back.....its very discouraging. I read this quote a while back and it stuck with me:

Never give out while there is hope; but hope not beyond reason, for that shows more desire than judgement.

I suppose the tricky part is knowing where that line is that is beyond reason. Have you seen “American Idol”? There are very sincere people who go on that show and the biggest hope and dream of their life is to be a professional singer.....and they actually can’t sing....at all...not a note on key. What if our desires are for things that just aren’t going to happen? Maybe this is all too fresh and because I’m still processing it all I shouldn’t be talking about it quite yet, but I’m not doing this blog because I have answers, this is simply my journey, and all the messiness, questions and confusion that goes with it.

I am also reminded of the name I decided for this whole blog. Choosing Hope wasn’t a name I came to lightly. It was me declaring that despite how circumstances appear, I was going make the decision to hope. Am I reneging on that now because I’ve hit a brick wall? Or am I discovering that some things we want to happen, no matter how much we hope or have faith just don’t, and that is when we understand again that God is in control after all? As you can see I really don’t know the answers here, I am honestly just asking questions.
 
I know there is no formula for hope or faith, they are living breathing things that move in and out of our circumstances and are uniquely shaped in all of our lives. I also know that God is God, He is the creator of all things, and is certainly capable of knowing whats best for us and working in our lives beyond our imaginations. I honestly believe with every fibre of my being that I can trust God. Maybe the secret then is coupling trust with hope. You know, I’ve actually been carrying hope like a weight, its been heavy on me. Its been like a pressure and I don’t think its supposed to be that way. So I could actually take the weight of it off me by putting that trust I say that I have in God, giving over to Him the behaviours, the progress, and the things that I would like to see changed. I guess that would mean that I put my hope in God, instead of circumstances and leave it up to Him how they turn out. Sounds great in theory right? Certainly harder to live out, but maybe that’s my answer.....