|
You wanted your troubled Hopeful to survive, and it was almost buried in the cemetery Hopeless. You were already being told by friends, family, and others, who said they cared – and they truly did, including not wanting you to get hurt more: “Go on, get that shovel! Start burying that dead thing! Quickly now! It's not worth saving. Count your losses and get out - Now! It can't be saved.”
They had the lifeless body buried before it had stopped writhing and you were even sure you were ready for the funeral. You had not even gotten that call from God, your Papa, “Okay, my dear, don't you think it's time to let it go. Tell that doc to take it off all life support.”
But you could hear friends outside the HCU singing gleefully, something about "Better days ahead," while you wanted to shed tears like a monsoon. You wanted to sing "Why Me, Lord?," but they were singing the "Hallelujah Chorus." They were talking boisterously, while you wanted to press your mouth to the left ear of that once lively dream, and whisper, "I still love you. Please, wake up. Please, don't give up."
You agreed, or wanted to, with everyone - after all, the vote was 100 to 1. You hoped God agreed, too. If you did not agree, with others and God, you kept your mouth shut, not daring to believe that lifeless, sprawling, and black-and-blue of a union, cemented – you thought – with the super glue Faith, could actually enjoy a resurrection honeymoon. “Still alive! Resurrected! Still alive!” - “No, too good to be true,” you surmised quietly. "After all, this is just the way things are. This is my life. There is nothing more I can do. Another dream wrecked in Dead End alley." These were your thoughts, as you pondered, “Is it really dead? Shall I say, 'Take it off.'”
|
|
You could already see the procession to the grave site. You could see the gathering around the six-foot hole in Lost Hope cemetery. You could hear persons say, “Okay, now you can get on with your life. Sorrow now, but remember, joy comes in the morning. God will have another hope just for you.” They could hear, "You'll have another hope," and you wanted to cry out, "But I want this hope, my hope back! I don't want another hope!"
But you heard another voice, from someone not in, indeed above, the 100 to 1. That voice boomed to be heard, and it arose with the ache of heart that sounded out a cry that no one could put into words. It sounded like the echo of thunder bouncing off the walls of the Himalayas. You wanted to listen, but you kept crying inside, “It was not supposed to be like this, God. How? Why?”
You mused on, "Sometimes, God, a hopeful start becomes a hopeless wreck – sometimes, but sometimes that wreck is the stuff of new beginnings. So, is it hope, or hope transformed, or hopeless, or just what? Please, let me know."
After a while, you decide what you shall do. But still you are not discerning what that Bouncing-Among-Himalayans-Thunder voice is bouncing all around you inside for.
You are like someone at the wreckage scene - to change the metaphor in mid-HCU: "Yep! God, I'm picking up the pieces of myself and leaving the pieces of this wreckage. I'm racing down the interstate, across the border to Far Away to Safety land. Yep! God, not even you can put back together the pieces of this mess.”
Then, something happens - just call it Grace, or choose another word - Love bends down and kisses the lips of that lifeless, so-it-seems corpse. And like a jack out of the box that so-it-seems corpse jumps up - okay, just opens its eyes - and starts breathing again. Like Lazarus, it comes from the tomb of Too-Messed-Up, all wrapped up - but alive. Dare you believe it could be? Or is it just the stress causing a momentary hallucination. Maybe you should call for someone to check your blood pressure, or give you something to calm your nerves.
Continued... |
