Hope

One of the coolest and most timely gifts I've ever received came from a dear friend of mine right before William was diagnosed with autism. It was a keychain with the universal autism symbol--the puzzle piece--with three charms, each bearing a message, "Faith," "Hope," and "Love." It will be in my hands along with my keys as long as I live. Or as long as I carry keys.

About a week after I received it, the "hope" charm went missing. I mean, really. I literally lost..."hope." Figures.

So, I've been walking around with my handicapped keychain, and every time I look at it, I am reminded about my missing hope, and it reminds me of my choice. Am I going to let this be a symbol and actually consider it lost? Or when it appears gone, am I even going to hope for hope?

I've been thinking about it lately. Hope. We all seem so broken lately, and it makes sense. Easter is a tough time, spiritually. In the Orthodox church, we fast hard for 40 days beforehand, and it truly focuses our efforts on the Lord. I think it was Anthony Bloom, actually, who said that we enter Lent in the way a soldier enters into battle. We do it joyfully, and yet with a somber understanding of what kind of opposition we'll face in the next month and a half. And we fight. By the end of Lent, most of us are feeling pretty spiritually beat up. It's not because we're stressing ourselves out by going to church so much, or because we're starving ourselves or whatever. It's because we rely so heavily on Christ during this time that we are quite literally taking hits from places we didn't even know existed. Our spiritual enemy is always determined to weaken us to the point of surrender, but if ever there were a time for him to really make it happen, it's when it looks like we might actually win against him.

And so when we reach Easter, at last, we hang all our hope on it. We shout for joy because it marks in all caps the fact that Christ has won the ultimate victory over every battle. We wait, and at last, our hope is fulfilled.

This year, our Paschal service was, as always, perfect. We, however, were not. Nora didn't want to go. William was a stimming mess. George was feeling grumpy. I was feeling annoyed with all of them. So, emotionally, it was sort of like the jack-in-the-box that didn't pop. And Bright Monday came, and it was rainy and flooding and all I wanted to do was stay in bed.

And again, I have a choice. Do I take the depressing weather as a symbol of how I feel inside, just like the broken keychain? Do I say, "Bright Week" with a scoff?

Not today. Hope wants to disappear. And maybe it has, from my sight. But that doesn't mean it isn't there...somewhere.