Hope Rising

I find that my heart is pulled towards the elderly among us as I meet them everyday at their most vulnerable moments: in a hospital bed, helpless, sometimes abandoned, lonely, forgotten, afraid . I find myself writing down their names so I do not forget their stories.
The most surprising thing for me is finding that for every one that is unwanted,  exploited or abandoned by their own families, there is one that is blessed by the unexpected kindnesses of neighbors, or acquaintances or church families that take them in and care for them without thought of recompense.  These are ordinary folk that rise up to the opportunity of  loving their neighbors and have become, to me, beacons of kindness and goodness in a busy, self-absorbed, indifferent world.

There are days when I feel the weight of my years, when my neck hurts and my knees creak; when I look in the mirror and find  gray hair multiplying,  notice my sagging skin and my growing eye bags and tell myself there is no going back to the days of my youth.  This is the point of no return.
I remember thinking that I will be 45 years old next year, and will have five more years then I will be fifty.  And my mind has yet to catch up to that reality; because for the most part, I do not think of myself as old...except on those days when my knees creak, and I see my face in the mirror, in the starkness of the light...when I feel exposed...all of my forty four years.
But hey, it is not so bad. In fact, it is all good. Because even as I recollect how fleeting time is and my life is, I have this reassurance. I have this hope.  And I recite to myself these words that I speak to the wrinkled  wisp of a woman who is lying sick and scared, missing her dead husband:

"Even to your old age and gray hairs, I am He who will sustain you;

I have made you;   I will carry you;

I will sustain you;

I will rescue you."      Isaiah 46:4

He gives me grace for each day, comfort in my dying, and in death, the hope of eternal life.

Everywhere I turn, people are dying or dead.  A member of our extended family passed away from cancer; another is terminally ill. A colleague of mine is losing her battle with cancer, as well. Everyday at work I see old folks, and folks like me, who are sick or dying.
I am surrounded by death and decay. 
I, myself, am decaying inside.Yet, I am hopeful.
Even better-- I am joyful.  That is joy of the radical kind, spurred by hope. Joyful in hope, is how the Bible calls it.

 
I cling to this life as with the thinnest of  threads. At any moment God may take me and  I will fly away.
However I enter death's door--  I may  die young, or  wither away in senility-- I shall not be afraid.
You are looking at a mere shell. I am more than my physical attributes  that could wrinkle and sag, and wear out and break down ; more than my mind that will, in time,  descend into forgetfulness, and my cognitive  capacities that will ultimately decline into uselessness, and irrelevance.   I have a forever - soul that is indestructible.
When Jesus comes, I will receive an immortal body and this immortal body will live forever with the One who conquered death and sin and hell.
What blessed hope to think about!
There is no reason for sadness, oh soul. 
So, today, as I sit here, sick with the flu, having been surrounded by old people, dying people, and death, I am writing about HOPE.
Because He lives, I also shall live!