For the Sick of Heart

You’re not coughing, you’re not running a fever, though your eyes may be pricking a little bit with tears… but the doctor thinks it’s because of your allergies, not agony. Your friends don’t think your skin looks sickly pale, but they have noticed the color that’s drained from your imagination. You’re not too tired that you can’t get your work done for the day but you’re fatigued enough that you don’t pray earnestly like you used to. You don’t have chills but you’re frozen in place. You don’t have a headache but an ache in your soul. There’s no medication that could nurse the hurt. You need to be prescribed something for your soul… a prescription purpose. You are heartsick.

“Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life.” - Proverbs 13:12

Deferred; the action of something being postponed. No one likes taking a raincheck, especially when you’ve been praying for God to make it rain. You’ve been waiting, praying, & hoping for this moment. The moment you can say, “I made it. It’s mine.” The door to your dream job has opened before you. The daydream of someone being in love with you isn’t a daydream anymore. The feeling of cold silver keys against your palm jolts you to reality - you have your own home now. All of these things God wrote into your story… are still yet to happen. You begin to get scared that they’ll never happen, because surely they should’ve happened by now. The anxiety makes you beyond sick to your stomach. It makes you sick in the heart. Swallowing the bitter pill of your reality over & over again makes you nauseous. How much longer until my moment arrives?

It’s not lost on God that hope deferred hurts. Expectations can weigh on you like a pile of books, each one a year of your life, each chapter written according to your timing. There will be a plot twist here, a redemption arc there, & a love interest who comes in here & concludes my happy ending. As a writer myself, I’d say I’m pretty good at drafting up fairytale moments to later pitch to God. I create a story where none of my hope is deferred but it’s distributed by God Himself. I think that’s why my heart is so sick with unfulfilled wishes, because I’m too creative for my own good. So, how can we cope with the ailment of hope?

We make God the basis of our hope. We know God is loving, merciful, just, a miracle worker & a promise keeper. Most things we hope for in the world are conditional & could come to an end unsuspectingly. The career, the partner, the house… every hope you once trusted to “heal” you could leave you sick overnight. God is the only dependable remedy for our souls, because He remains forever. God is continuously working in us & in our lives, even if it doesn’t look how we hoped it would. Our hearts can stay hopeful – even in the midst of longing, loss & momentary troubles – if we put our hope alone in Jesus Christ, & His promise of glory to us.

“Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all.” – 2 Corinthians 4:16-18.