a reason for hope

After the knock at the door, my friend's husband was brave and handed me the meal she had made us. He could have left quickly, with a small tight smile or a sorry expression. He asked me how I was instead, if I was feeling positive? And all at once I didn't know how to answer, didn't know if I was positive or negative or ambivalent or just really scared.

It changes.

This morning it was hope filled with hope. As big as a hot air balloon headed into a sunshiney day with just a still breeze. 

This afternoon the knots started with a simple granny knot and built up and up on themselves until they could have held a ship steady against a warf. 

I answered him, but it was a simple answer. My hope is in Jesus. Not exactly sure what I'm meaning when I say it, and fully aware that this answer could be a let down as perhaps I'm supposed to be pretending I'm not dying. Pretending that my doctor didn't just show me scans with tumors throughout my body, growing and growing and making my eyesight go strange and my legs ache. 

I trust Jesus and choose to hold His hand, but I will not pretend this means I will see my 40th birthday. If I do it's gonna be a huge celebration. It will be at Carrick Hill on those huge lawns with hundreds of my favorite people, and it will be glorious, and I will raise my glass to the extra years, the ones I wasn't supposed to have, and I will think back to the knots and the fear and the year 2014, and it will be epic and I might even have some extra wrinkles, and my boys will be older, and I long for that.

But. if it's less time that I have then I will trust Jesus knows what He is doing with my family and my life. If all my days are written in His book, then i'm really not getting ripped off like it feels sometimes. The days were never mine to have. 

I really have to work on my answer though, because as the days turn into weeks, I want to be ready with an answer for the hope I possess. 

I think it looks harder to live this from the outside than it feels to live it from the inside. 

I have a reason for hope.