Seeking Hope

As a little girl, I was convinced that being older was way better than being young. On my fourth birthday, I remember telling my mom I wanted to skip four and be five. Five had to be better than four. I carried this sentiment with me all the way into adolescence. But it wasn’t just about wanting to do what the big kids did; I also believed something faulty about growing up.

I thought being a grown up was easier.

Whether it was the movies I watched, or not really paying attention to the adult world around me, I somehow had adopted the idea that being a grown up meant having it all together. If you did all the right things, worked really hard, life would be good (i.e. sans stress, broken relationships, disappointment, and shattered dreams). I really had no idea what was coming.

I had no clue that after college, instead of getting a job in my chosen field, I would work in retail for a year. Or that when I finally did get the job I wanted, that it would grow, challenge, and even break me. I had no idea I would be single for as long as I was. Or that when I finally started dating my husband, how good love could be. But I also didn’t know that that feeling of waiting for life to happen, never really goes away.

About five years ago, I made a really difficult decision. I quit my job. It sent my life and my husband’s life in a different direction than we were planning. But rather than that direction leading me and us into something new, it seemed to land us in a waiting room of sorts. Instead of finding ourselves in a hallway of open doors, we seemed to be left in a room with no doors or windows.

Staring at each other from across the room, all that came from our mouths were questions.

“What if we…?”

“Have you thought about…?”

“Could we…?”

“Should we…?”

They kept coming. Yet there weren’t any answers to go along with them. So we did the only thing we could; we kept asking. We kept praying. Sometimes, a door would seem to appear, only to disappear just as quickly. Where in previous times in my life, I waited for one thing (a job, a spouse), this time there were so many questions, I didn’t know what I was waiting for. Days turned into weeks, into months, into years, and:

No answer.

Until…

This is where I tell you about the miraculous thing that happened to us. How all our questions were answered and our dreams came true. But instead, I have to tell you that there is no until—at least not yet.

We’re still waiting.

The discomfort of this confession, may make you want to try and fix things for us. Like it has for those close to us, it may make you ask:

“Have you tried…?”

To which we would say, “Yes, multiple times.”

Life as a grown up is nothing like what I thought. It’s messy. It’s hard. Having it all together is a facade. And so much of it seems to be about trying to live life to the fullest in the midst of waiting.

I am tempted to offer a silver lining, to wrap things up neatly in a bow. But I won’t. I will only say that I am beginning to understand, now more than ever, the price of hope. In Romans five, it talks about how suffering produces perseverance, perseverance produces character, and character produces hope.

In her book, Looking for Lovely, Annie Downs points out that we often think that hope is something we choose or that is simply given to us—yet, instead it is something that we gain only through the painful experience of suffering. She writes “…hope is an expensive commodity, not easily won, always fought for, and the result of a process that will take some time.”

Our process is taking much more time than we are comfortable with. All that I can say is that everyday we are seeking hope.