“May the God of hope fill you with joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope.” Romans 15:13
“I’m hoping for the best.”
“That’s a good place to be – way better than hoping for the worst.”
So went part of a conversation I had with a good friend yesterday about the shoulder surgery I will undergo tomorrow.
I guffawed. It was so funny what he said. I mean, yeah, who would ever hope for the worst? My spoken cliché hinted at the unbelief in my heart. The Spirit seemed to take the thought and use it to nudge me, “Are you really hoping for the best, or are you believing the worst?”
The fact is, I’ll be honest here, I WANT to hope for the best, but I’m worn out with hoping for this shoulder. This will be my fourth shoulder surgery –two on my right shoulder to finally get it right, and the second on my left to address the problems that arose during rehab from my rotator cuff repair. (And, no, I don’t know why this has happened to me. Sure, I play(ed) tennis most of my life, but I know women who play way more than I who’ve never had one problem.)
When asked, I had to answer the Holy Spirit honestly, “I dread the coming days – the way anesthesia leaves me feeling groggy for days, missing fun with family, losing days of work, the stretching, and the pain, pain, pain.”
But then, well, not then exactly, but sometime during the day and for sure, this morning. A small shift came. In the grocery store, I had this thought, “I’ll ride the hope of others for me. I don’t have to hope. Others are doing it on my behalf.” And the strangest thing happened this morning. I felt like someone had been reading my mail when my husband, who also happens to be my surgeon (no, we’ve never done this before, but after much prayer, we think it’s the right decision), came into my study and talked to me about my surgery. He told me there’s a new nasal spray that might keep me from having to take as much narcotic post-op. He told me what he plans to do. He talked to me about how he wants to see me out of chronic pain. And he prayed for me.
I’m not going to lie – I’d still trade my surgery in for a root canal (I thinkJ!), but I feel hope growing, and I’m grateful. Hope doesn’t depend on my hoping for the best, because often I am really believing the worst. But the God of all hope is filling our hearts, using people to do it. Who will you ask to hope for you today?
