Hope without a Deadline

I am no stranger to the deadline. Just this year alone, I’ve had six book deadlines I’ve had to meet already and one still looming by the end of the year (and two other projects that need finished or as-much-finished-as-possible before 2027 rolls around). I like deadlines. They motivate me to stay on task, keep my rear in the chair, and put words on the page.

But when it comes to life? Not every situation comes with a deadline–or, to put it a different way, an ending. We don’t always know if a particular trial is just-for-a-time or if it will last forever.

And that’s something I’ve been sitting with a lot in recent months, since my new oncologist told me treatments will likely be forever for me. Forever is the exact opposite of a deadline. Forever means no end in sight. Forever is a concept that goes against our instincts when it’s not the promise of something delightful. 

This is, in fact, something people have done experiments on–the fact that we like to know when things are supposed to happen or end. Waiting without knowledge of when the wait will end creates anxiety. Give me tracking on the package. Tell me how long until the train or plane or bus arrives. Tell me when the power will be restored. Even if the estimate is wrong, having one helps keep anxiety and frustration under control.

But not everything in life works that way. Barring a cure, my son will never stop having to deal with diabetes. My mom will have to live with back pain. I’ll be dealing with cancer treatments. Chances are good that you have (or will have) something you’ll have to deal with chronically too.

So when life’s challenges don’t come with a time limit, how do we cling to hope? What do we do when the Lord chooses not to calm the storm around us?

That’s when we need to remember that He can still calm the storm within, even when the waters are raging. We can trust Him, find our rest alongside the Savior who slept through that tossing storm while His disciples were frantic, crying out for Him.

The “how” of doing that isn’t one simple answer. But as I was writing The Island Bikeshop, with a heroine who’s still coming to grips with the fact that her new normal may well include migraines several times a week and a permanent limit to some activities she used to do thanks to a traumatic brain injury, I spent some time exploring something.

That we can’t wait to thank God until the challenge is over–it might never be. So we have to learn to thank God in it. Not necessarily for it–but IN it. Because there are blessings in that trial, blessings you’d never have known without that trial.

There are the people you meet through it.

There are the new perspectives you gain because of it.

There are the ways we learn to lean on each other to get through it, and the way relationships deepen because of it.

There are the ways God meets you there, in your pain or your grief or your struggle, and you learn something new about the depths of our Lord.

There are the people who open up to you and share their needs and struggles only because they know you’ll understand, given your own.

There is the strength you gain through this training that allows you to keep going…and keep serving.

Obviously we still wish the trial would end. If medical science finds a cure for diabetes, my son will be thrilled! But we can’t plan for that. So instead, we find the blessing in what we’re given.

It’s there–I promise you that. Are you eyes open to it?