Beat of Hope
She had absolutely had it! You could go ahead and randomly pick an aspect of her life, any aspect, and she could have written up an entire thesis on what was going wrong and why it wasn’t worth trying anymore.
At every turn she was hitting a road block and considering the path she was on, reversing was not an option to consider. She sat and attempted to give herself a well needed pep talk by bringing to memory all the things she had once either told someone who was going through a hard time, or had been told in a tough moment in her life in the not so distant past. In her current life examination however, all the ‘passco’ was ‘nonfa’ (excuse my “British English”). She couldn’t get herself to believe that she had made it through hard times before and will thus make it through this one because times had never been as hard as this. All evidence to show that others had made it through similar times were dismissive in her court because the situations of others were just that, similar, not same. There was no formula that could resolve, no theory that could explain, no guess to be hazarded, no clue to be explored in disentangling her from this web of a problem. I would explain to you what exactly the problem or more accurately, her problems were but please understand that when you are in a fix with family, career doesn’t show promise, friends are being unreasonable, the option of turning to the mystical better half figure does not exist, and each of these problems tend to feed into others, situations become quite hard to explain in one breath.
There was no formula that could resolve, no theory that could explain, no guess to be hazarded, no clue to be explored in disentangling her from this web of a problem
An inability to explain the problem(s) meant that this time Google could not be of help. As a tech freak and Google enthusiast, it was now dawning on her that Google doesn’t always have the answers. It only has answers to problems that can be explained or expressed in words, but when the only thing you can do to offer an explanation to your issues is let out a sound like “mmmmmaaahhhhhhuhhhh”, nope, Google cannot help you with that. They say that the first step to solving a problem is identifying it so at this point she was sure that there was no hope. The problem could not be identified, at least not in understandable terms.
She would have talked to someone if there was one who was both available and interested in helping but as expected, all those who were available saw no need for her need for help (as far as they were concerned, she had it way better than them and should be grateful to God). The few who would possibly be interested in helping were too busy with their own lives and problems to bother about hers.
Filled with a fine mixture of anguish, frustration and fear, she now contemplated whether or not to cry. She knew all too well that the flow of water from her eyes did not hold the solutions to the issues that bugged her but maybe it would do good on easing the pain that cluttered her emotions. So she just did it, and it was absolute coincidence that it was with her Nike shirt that she dried her tears. As if there was a need to convince herself that she was indeed crying, she would wait for the overflow of tears from her eyes to trickle down to her chin, then as though to replicate the work flow of a car wiper, she would pull up her shirt to dub the tears for a brief moment and then wait till her chin was dripping wet again. Returning her “wiper” into a position of rest below her neck after its fourth or so call of duty however, her hand brushed closely against her chest and she paused abruptly in her tears. She felt an unrelenting chant to hope; her heartbeat.
Having once dreamed of studying medicine, she had taken her science classes seriously and knew all the scientific explanations that could be offered to the fast rate at which her heart beat. This time however, it was as though with every beat, her heart spoke to her. “As long as I am still at work, things can change, it will get better.” She stopped to think. What lessons could she learn from the work ethic of her heart? Through disappointments, trials, the lowest moments she had experienced yet, it didn’t stop beating. It didn’t give up even when her mind had reached the conclusion that there was no way called forward. On the contrary, it worked harder through the tough times. When she was scared, it beat faster, when she was anxious it would quicken its pace, when she was sad it worked harder and so should she. Once Mr. heart was still at post, all hope was not lost after all. She realized that not all problems had name tags; didn’t mean they would never go away. Not all trials had a handbook of solutions; didn’t mean resolutions didn’t exist.
Once Mr. heart was still at post, all hope was not lost after all.
The next time you are in that seemingly inexplicable and unsolvable bottleneck, or if you are there right now, place your hand on your chest. What do you feel? It’s more than a rhythm to which the rest of your body dances. Each beat is a wink from the Creator urging you on. In the toughest moments He doesn’t run away. He is even more present to pull you through. You have no place to call it quits before He has declared the end of the battle. The battle only ends when He hushes the rhythm. Here me, when He hushes the rhythm. Not you. Till then, keep trying, keep holding on, keep striving. Sometimes all it takes is time for the dark clouds to give way to the sunlight.
