To hope...

It finally happened. In the early morning, between snooze buttons, I dreamed what is for me the impossible dream. I was in a room with two other diabetics, Joe, and a doctor. Telling me that with a shot, and oddly eating a piece of ham beforehand (its crazy things like that that tell me I'm dreaming), that I'd be cured of something I've had for 23 1/2 years. I'd be cured of diabetes.

I woke up not wanting to open my eyes. Not wanting to doubt that God CAN cure His creation. James tells us that we are not to doubt when we ask God:

If any of you lacks wisdom, klet him ask God, lwho gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him. 6 BBut mlet him ask in faith, nwith no doubting, for the one who doubts is like oa wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind. 7 For that person must not suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord; 8 phe is a double-minded man, qunstable in all his ways. - James 1:5-8

So I laid there, listening to Joe wake up and turn off the alarm, holding onto that picture in my head. Unsure, I asked Joe with what I see now as a child-like voice, quietly full of hope and fear, "Did it really happen?" Lovingly, Joe gave me my test kit and watched as my face fell, knowing that needing a test kit meant, "No. I'm sorry." I'll admit, I cried. But it helped me come to the realization that I don't know how to hope for such things. After living with it for so long, I automatically assumed that it was to be my thorn from 2 Corinthians 12:7. "So to keep me from becoming conceited because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations, a thorn was

given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to harass me, to keep me from becoming conceited." But this morning, God showed me I can hope for such things. He CAN do the impossible. He is our Creator, and if He a world with just His word, He is beyond able to cure it of disease. So I prayed, while sending salty tears into my cereal bowl. I know God can heal me, that He can mend His creation from the sin that ravages it. But I prayed that God would teach me to hope for such things. That I wouldn't toss them aside as crazy dreams that God would never care about. But that I would hope for a cure, that I would be assured that one day, whether in the close or distant future, He will provide what doctors have been searching for. That I would have confidence knowing that He WILL cure me, because one day "'He will wipe away every tear from their eyes,and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor painanymore, for the former things have passed away.'"- Revelations 21:4

He will cure me. It may be today, it may be tomorrow. But I can have hope in the relief He brings. I can live joyfully with this trial because He has saved me from myself already, and this trial will not be my eternal torment. He has already given eternal life, so I can hope in the time when nothing but pure joy in Christ awaits me. Praise You Lord... I can hope.