I was never a huge fan of Emily Dickinson, but we’ve almost all heard the line, “Hope is the thing with feathers / that perches in the soul.” Hope is a happy thing, and Dickinson concludes even in extremity it never asks a thing. I would argue otherwise. Hope can be exhausting.
Then again, perhaps I’m confusing it with faith – which is being sure of what you hope for.
Either way, I’ll argue that the feathered thing is essential to survival. Yesterday, I had a delightful birthday, and as I ended the evening watching an emotional episode of Call the Midwife, I heard the nuns share the essential wisdom, “Life is never without hope.” The protagonist shares the same sentiment with a family struggling to understand why the medical community would bother saving a child with spina bifida.
Why did anyone bother saving me? Is my quality of life any less than yours because I can’t walk around with the same ease? I would argue I enjoy life more than most people because I understand how valuable it is having had so much taken away.
Due to my accident, I’m all the more intentional about celebrating the freedom to have a full day of work, therapy, grocery shopping, and dinner with a friend. This Friday, I went in to school early to work on new assignments and prepare my lessons for the coming week. I also had the absolute joy of reading the Joseph narrative with two sections of juniors and heard groans at the bell with fifteen kids begging me to let them stay and finish the story instead of going to their next class.
Later in the afternoon, I made it to therapy with Anja, and she put me back on the elliptical. This time she filmed a few seconds of my awesome stepping before I exhausted myself. Once seated to catch my breath, she took my braces off and said we’d try without them once I was rested enough. After two and a half years, I’ll do whatever Anja asks because I trust her. I carefully got back on the elliptical with her help and managed a couple minutes of this incredible new feat. She filmed it as well and let me watch them both to compare. I’m incredible.
Okay, but seriously, three years ago on my birthday, I remember celebrating three steps, and now the day after walking on an elliptical without braces, I got to have almost two hours in the thermal baths moving around with so many muscles – weak, but at least present. And now I’m even excited about the thermal baths! Multiple people have commented to me about that hilarity that I chose to go to Bad Bellingen with two friends for my birthday. Yes, Carol convinced me to enjoy them. I had so much fun relaxing Saturday morning with coffee and conversation with two precious students followed by an excursion to Bad Bellingen with Carol and Katrina. I then hung out at the Bonhams for an amazing dinner and the best chocolate cake I’ve ever tasted followed by some episodes of Call the Midwife.
I teared up watching the TV characters deal with the drama of a disabled child. Because of the feathered thing, someone decided to improve the quality of life for those in wheelchairs. I’m a beneficiary of the ongoing studies for the medical advances and facility upgrades, and that feathered thing ruffles me out of bed each morning as I wheel to school and share my certainty of hope with students.
Tomorrow I’ll collect some worksheets on Joseph, and we’ll keep talking about how Old Testament narratives can change our lives – man, that Joseph story is mad crazy, though. It excites me, and I get to talk to students about how it can motivate us to live differently just as the Ruth narrative can (which we’ll read together in class on Wednesday).
But a final comment on the exhaustion. Hope is exhausting for me because while it gets me out of bed each morning, I’m still disabled for the present moment. I’ve got a lot of hope in what is yet to come, but I’m desperate for your prayers that I’ll keep getting out of bed and accomplishing more each day. As I continue to live and work to the glory of God, there are things that try to discourage and disrupt my progress. I’m making some intentional changes to my lifestyle to combat them, but I covet prayers in establishing healthy routines that improve my holistic health as I serve my students.
