Hope

One of the most beautiful gifts of a thorn in the flesh is the opportunity that it gives you to hope. 

Yes, you heard me right - that thing that God doesn't seem to want to heal, that thing that doesn't seem like it's ever going to get better, that thing that makes you have to grind through significant portions of your life because it's always with you is the very thing that keeps you tethered to this beautiful thing called "hope." 

By the time it has become a thorn in the flesh, most of us have completely exhausted all of our resources. Like the bleeding woman, we have seen all of the doctors, spent all of our money, tried all of the remedies, dug through the encyclopedias of native and natural remedies, put things into ourselves that we would never have fathomed would become one with our tissues. We have run out of earthly options...actually, we probably ran out of earthly options a long time ago and we have even run out of the bizarre, crazy, other-worldly options. Even aliens aren't coming to heal us. 

We have prayed all the prayers, cried all the tears, yearned all the yearnings, enlisted all the warriors, gathered all the righteous, made our three-strand cords of friends, filled all the journals. 

All we have left is hope. 

But remember - as Christians, when we say "hope," we're not talking about a wish. We're not talking about a dream. We're not talking about blowing the feathers off a dandelion into the wind and wondering if God catches the message. (And, by the way, by the time we have a thorn in the flesh, we've stripped all the dandelions naked, too.) 

Hope, for the Christian, is confident assurance in the things we know to be true about God. Hope is trust in His heart. Hope is faith in His goodness. Hope is waiting expectantly, knowing we are wrapped in His love. 

That's why hope is such a gift. 

It reminds us of what we believe. It reminds us of what we know. It reminds us of what He's promised. It reminds us of what His Word tells us. It reminds us of the stories - of the ones in the Bible and the ones that we've heard and the ones that we've lived and the ones that we've scribbled in the pages of the journals that we just maxed out with our newest hope. 

It reminds us what He's capable of. It reminds us what He's done. It reminds us what His love means, and what it means for us to be His beloved. 

It keeps our eyes focused not on the thorn, but on the God who wore those thorns in His crown so that we would know that He gets it. He understands. 

And one way or another, this God is our only way through this. Either He will heal us, as we know He is able, or He will give us the strength - moment by moment, day by day, breath by breath - to endure, as we know He is able to do that, too. 

So our hope rests in Him and Him alone. 

And what a beautiful gift that is.