What is life without hope? I was having a conversation with a new friend I met this week on the pickleball court (you meet the nicest people on the pickleball court by the way!). Todd was telling my husband and I about how his mother lived for over 40 years with a debilitating degenerative spinal disease that kept her in a wheelchair for years.
The wheelchair part was easy. What was more difficult was the chronic pain she lived in for much of her life. End of life decisions were hard and caused the family to be divided in her medical care; and she did not want to live. Another good friend has just entered into a lifelong season ahead due to her son’s ATV accident that has left him a quadriplegic. As they care take for him, I have been inspired by their faith, their trust and their hope.
The stories brought me back to just one short year ago when I was dealing with a debilitating illness that eventually was diagnosed as an autoimmune disease called CSU (Chronic Spontaneous Urticaria). Many of you reading this blog may remember the 24/7 chronic hives that plagued me for four months – to the point that there were times I did feel that there was no hope. I recently read back through my journal at that time “Lord, you say that faith is the confident assurance that the things we hope for will actually happen and that’s it’s the evidence of the things we have yet to see” (Hebrews 11:1). That’s my Julie translation by the way. The NIV puts it this way.
THE $4000 INJECTION
Thankfully for me, after several months of misery, waiting and tests, we were able to get insurance approval for a “magic” injection called Xolair. I’m going on nearly one year of getting this expensive injection. While I’m not happy about the now $943/month expense of this drug, I’m grateful I can now administer it at home and also grateful for my small beauty business that helps pay for it. For me, there was great hope in finding a cure for this chronic disease through this injection! The hope and prayer is that soon it will stay in remission and I won’t need this injection any longer!
I know just a little bit about what it feels like to have no hope at least in terms of wondering if you’ll ever be freed of a disease. And yet, my relationship with Jesus gives me GREAT HOPE for a resurrected, new body. For a body free of disease and pain and sorrow (Rev 21:4). I am certainly grateful for that promise and that I don’t live with no hope. I look forward to that day; and you too can have that peace. Can have that hope. Can have that reassurance.
