"Hope deferred makes the heart sick" Proverbs 13:12
Thats where I am tonight and have been for the past 7 days.
Heartsick.
To understand my state of mind, I really need to let you in on the circumstances that brought me to this place...and I'm going back to the very beginning.
From early in my childhood, I have been enamored with France. I loved watching old movies that were set in France, listening to french music, eating french food. There was a romanticism that surrounded it and I wanted to have a part of it. As soon as I was able to take french in high school, I did. I fell so in love with the language I studied french for 3 years. I hoped to major in french in college and my guidance counselor talked me out of it, because "What could you do with a french degree? Each school only has one teacher and they never leave." (Meaning, teaching is the only possible thing you could ever do with a french degree...thanks Alabama public school education!) So, I gave up the hope of becoming fluent in french and sorted through 5 different majors only to never finish my degree at all.
Fast forward 15 years, and I have 3 kids and am homeschooling. As soon as I found out there was a french class for kids, mine were enrolled. A funny side note...3 year old Meredith asked me one day how to say 'who' in french. I told her 'qui'. She thought for a minute and said "mommy, do owls in France say qui, qui? Years later, when my kids were in high school, we hosted several french exchange students and I fell in love with each one. One in particular girl won my heart when she insisted on praying to accept Christ before she went home. This experience gave birth to a dream of starting an exchange program for teenagers who want to come to the states to explore Christianity. I had hopes of going to visit them and seeing the towns and cities that they called home and possibly connecting with a pastor there that we could partner with to start the exchange program. Money and time were the thieves of my dream...but mostly money and the trips never came to be.
A few years later, my husband came home and told me that a family from our church had committed to go to France as missionaries and he was going to have lunch with Greg. My first response was, not without me! We had lunch after church with the family and my heart burst within me. When we got in the car to leave, Meredith said, so when are we going? I hoped that maybe we had found someone who could be on the ground in France to partner with. So we supported them, prayed for them and waited for God to open doors.
This past birthday found me as an empty-nester, with one child married, two in college and a husband that travels. I had always said that I wanted to be a lifelong learner, so when I saw an ad for Rosetta Stone language course, I purchase it for myself as a birthday present and decided to finally pick back up the language I had fallen in love with decades ago. I found it harder to learn, but was determined to do it if only for the shear joy of it. In May, for our 29th anniversary, we talked over dinner and dreamed of taking a 30th anniversary trip to Europe and discussed what we would like to see. It still seemed like a long shot, but hey...I can still hope.
Now is where the story takes an interesting turn. One night after our small group Bible study had met, a dear friend of ours (that friendship is a whole other blog post about how God works) told us that he wanted to send us on a mission trip to France. I could not believe my ears, and was absolutely blown away by the offer. I told him that I had no idea what we would do. He told me to look into it and when we found something, he would make it happen.
So, the first thing I thought of was contacting the missionaries, who as it turned out, were home on furlough. We sat down over coffee and I just wanted to hear what all was going on with the ministry and how they were doing. Near the end of the conversation, I told them that I had been given the opportunity to go on a mission trip to France and asked if there was anything I could help them with. They looked at each other astonished and told me how their biggest event of the year was a Christmas carol service and the person who normally led it, was not going to be able to be there this year. Also, they mentioned that they would love to have someone decorate their church for the Christmas season. I couldn't believe what I was hearing. Anyone who knows me, knows of my love for leading worship and decorating. This trip could not be more perfect for my giftedness. I couldn't believe the lavish love of God that he would arrange this so miraculously and allow me to serve in the country I had always dreamed of. I asked them to give me a list of things that they would love to have for the event and set to work on making it happen. They wanted a team to lead worship, so I invited Dianne to come and play piano and Stewart to play guitar and help lead. To my amazement, they both said yes and with their spouses, the six of us started to plan.
Since we would be gone over Thanksgiving, we let our kids know that they needed to make other plans. The oldest and her husband decided to take in the Macy's parade in New York. the younger two decided to go to Memphis to spend Thanksgiving with their grandparents. Support letters were sent out and donations sent in. Plane tickets were purchased, hotel rooms booked, prayer calendars made, Christmas decorations were donated and collected, candy canes for the kids complete with homemade cards from kids in our church were made, treats to be served at the event were being baked by women in our church, graphic artist designed the posters and promotional pieces. We gathered to plan, we rehearsed music...even learned a Christmas hymn in french to sing with them in their native tongue. Suitcases were being packed and the hopes and dreams of a lifetime were materializing. A little more than a week before we were to leave, on a Thursday night we had an evening of sharing and prayer with friends to send us on our way.
The next day, on Friday, December 13th, the unthinkable happened. We heard through texts and on the news that there had been massive shootings and bombings in Paris. I got home from work and was glued to the news as it was unfolding. I was in contact with one of my exchange students as she was near to the area that was under attack. I spent the evening praying and hoping that we would be a light in the darkness there. As the weekend progressed, the news came that Isis was responsible and the threats were increasing and travel warnings were being issued. Still, we were praising God that we would be able to be on the ground ready to minister to these people who were so hurting and in need of hope. We had been praying for God to open the hearts of the french people and believed that he would use these events to bring these people to himself. We wanted so badly to believe that he would use us to be his hands and feet to the people there.
Monday, the word came that the Christmas carol event was cancelled due to the danger of being a target and the trip was off.
Oddly enough, the news didn't sink in immediately. See, I had come down with a nasty cold and was sick as a dog on the couch and really doped up on cold medicine and couldn't imagine being able to get through airports and make it onto a flight without being pulled off as a health risk! As I came out of my sick stupor, the reality began to sink in. The. Trip. Was. Off.
There it is...heart sick. The only words I know to describe where I sit right now. Even as I type, I'm sitting in front of a half packed suitcase that taunts me of what could have been. I can't bring myself to unpack it because it's not just unpacking candy canes, Christmas ornaments, passports and clothes specially chosen for France's chilly, rainy season. It's unpacking a lifetime of dreams. Of hope deferred. Of what I think of God and planning and having hope. It's a unpacking a picture of why I often won't allow myself to get my hopes up...because trips get cancelled and Thanksgivings are spent alone, and people don't always get healed, and businesses fail and kids are born with disabilities and your heart gets hurt again and again.
And, why does God lead us down paths...sooo far down paths that lead to nowhere...to half packed suitcases and unstamped passports? And why does he allow you to hope for things that aren't going to happen and let you believe that it was his dream for you as well and believe that he placed that longing and hope in your heart so long ago? And why does he allow the enemy to accuse you of not being spiritually prepared or that you are being selfish in wanting to take a mission trip to France?
I can only imagine that this must be how the disciples felt after they had just watched their hopes and dreams hang on a cross and die. Luke 24:19 Tells of how they were walking on the Road to Emmaus talking to a stranger (who was really Jesus) about the shocking events that had just happened....the murder of their innocent friend.
“About Jesus of Nazareth,” they replied. “He was a prophet, powerful in word and deed before God and all the people. 20 The chief priests and our rulers handed him over to be sentenced to death, and they crucified him; 21 but we had hoped that he was the one who was going to redeem Israel." There's that nasty word again...hope.
Everything they had based their life on...hoping and dreaming of the reign of the Messiah, of redemption...half packed suitcases to the kingdom...all seemingly gone. Trip cancelled. Unpack your bags and go back to what you were doing before..as if it all never happened.
What happens when we find ourselves uttering that phrase 'but we had hoped'? Well, for a while we feel heart sick. Hope deferred. We sit long, thinking about what might have been. Like the disciples, we discuss the details of what happened, hoping all the while to make some sense of it all. Sometimes, we place the grid of what we believe about God over it all and explain away the doubts and questions. We talk about how it's a good thing that trip got cancelled because it would have just been too dangerous! God was protecting you! (And he wasn't protecting the people who were brutally murdered by terrorists?) Or, "you would have been too sick to enjoy it..it's a good thing it was cancelled". "God knew you just needed a time of rest more than you needed this trip." Or, "it just wasn't his timing..the people just weren't ready". (As if there is only one moment in time when someone is ready to be pointed to the Saviour.) Well meaning people offer their take on why it didn't happen and spout off how "God works in mysterious ways..." Unfortunately, all of the claims of why God did or didn't allow it are just our feeble way of trying to understand the ways of a God who cannot be put in a box (or a suitcase) and tied up with a bow. At the end of the day, "Many are the plans of a man's heart but it is God's purpose that prevails." Proverbs 19:21
At this point in time, I don't have a clue what his purpose was in allowing us to plan the trip that never happened. Everyone wants to tell me that it WILL happen, the trip will be rescheduled and I WILL go to France. As much as I would like to hope for that, I'm having a hard time mustering it up. This God that I have chosen to place my hope in offers me very few guarantees in this life other than his presence with me wherever I am and life eternal through his Son. So, the hope I cling to...with the very thin thread of my faith remaining right now...is not in the promise of a future trip or an exchange program to win the hearts of french teenagers, but a hope in a God who placed hope in me in the beginning. The same God in whom Job placed his hope when he had lost everything and declared "Though he slay me, yet will I hope in him." Job 13:15
How do I find my way to hope again? I go back to the basics. I remind myself of the truths he has spoken to my heart again and again in times of infertility, sickness, financial woes, relationships shattered...hope deferred. I remind myself that in the words of a favorite song, "God is too wise to be mistaken and too good to be unkind." I go back to familiar and time tested scripture that he wrote on my heart. "For everything that was written in the past was written to teach us, so that through the endurance taught in the Scriptures and the encouragement they provide we might have hope". Romans 15:4
I CHOOSE to believe that he indeed works all things together for good...and that is not just a trite saying...it is his Word and is true! I repeat these truths and preach them to myself until they take hold and I believe them and find them once again to be true and Him to be worthy of all of my hopes and dreams. See the whole verse of Proverbs 13:12 reads, "Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life." My longing must be for Him...the tree of life. That longing will always be fulfilled.
This Christmas season, as I hear the old familiar songs played and sung, I am reminded of this one:
O little town of Bethlehem, how still we see thee lie!
Above thy deep and dreamless sleep the silent stars go by.
Yet in thy dark streets shineth the everlasting Light;
The hopes and fears of all the years are met in thee tonight.
In the darkness that exists in France, in the darkness of my own soul, shines an everlasting light. The hopes and fears of all the years, are met in Him tonight and in the nights yet to come. Until he sees us home...we have this hope.
