“Those who keep speaking about the sun while walking under a cloud are messengers of hope…”

Henri Nouwen

I left the hospital that night not knowing how the next day would look.  Twenty-four hours after a massive stroke, Chuck was still intubated and sedated.  Earlier that day, the ICU doctor had talked to me about a tracheostomy.

Two and a half months later, Chuck had outpatient follow-up appointments to try to figure out why he was the only person in 200 surgeries to have had a stroke after that specific surgery.  Prepared for the 90-mile drive and an overnight stay, we all piled in the car again and headed out.

Cody doesn’t sleep well….well, anywhere, even at home…but he sleeps even worse in hotels.  Poor sleep means increased seizures.  So, having found a quiet room during out first stay in March, we requested that one again in May and thankfully checked into the same room.

The problem was that it was the exact same room.  After unloading the suitcases, I walked to the elevator to take the luggage cart back down to the parking level.  As the elevator doors closed in front of me, I had a momentary panicky thought, “Have we not left?!” 

My brain knew, of course, that we’d been home for almost two months, but my body, in that moment, didn’t quite believe it.  The trauma in my body overrode the two months of memories at home that my brain knew existed.  It was like reality was the dream, and I was right back where I had been in March.  (Yes, I know that’s PTSD.)

During the whole elevator ride down, I actually had to talk myself out of that thought, out of the panic attack.

Back in the room, I did some deep breathing and decided to enjoy the view from the sixth floor.  Looking out the window, I saw cute 100-year-old homes with fully-leafed out trees.  A beautiful, spring day in Minnesota.

Remembering the pictures that I had taken through that window in March, I opened my phone to review them, including one of a magnificent sunset I could only have seen from six stories in the air.

I decided to recreate one other photo the next morning, not with a blog post in mind, not for a social media worthy photo, but because that’s just what I do.  The greens of the leaves contrasted so clearly with the grey of the previously dormant trees that I just wanted to remember a brighter moment, a different season in my life.

I managed to take a picture early the next morning at almost the exact same time as the one two months earlier.  From March to May, in two different seasons, things had changed.  Sometimes the season, the situation changes.  Maybe sometimes the only thing that changes in a season is me.  But, in comparing those pictures, I realized no moment lasts forever.  Not the beautiful sunset, not the cold, dark morning.

The contrast in these pictures reminded me that hope exists in every season.  They reminded me about words I’ve written in other posts:

Beauty in the brokenness
Light in the darkness
Joy in the sorrow
Dancing amid the mourning

Things that sound so cliché when we don’t have them, can’t grasp them.

But that amazingly can be true nonetheless.

So, my prayer for you is, even if only for a moment, a glimpse of hope.  Because “hope deferred makes the heart sick,” but hope realized “is a tree of life” (Prov. 13:12).  Just like those bright, spring-green trees below my hotel window on that second visit.

Today, may you find

Beauty in the brokenness
Light in the darkness
Joy in the sorrow
Dancing amid the mourning

Or, if you just can’t quite feel them yet, that you can see them on the horizon, like the green tinge of buds just about to open, and believe they are coming for you.

Because this is not how tomorrow will look.

“If you think you’re seeing the same show all over again seven times a week, you’re crazy.  Every morning you wake up to something that in all eternity never was before and never will be again.  And the you that wakes up was never the same before and will never be the same again either.”

Frederick Buechner, “Creation” from Beyond Words