de·fer1
dəˈfər/verbverb: defer; 3rd person present: defers; past tense: deferred; past participle: deferred; gerund or present participle: deferring
I’m sure you know this by now,
but it’s Easter.
Hope deferred makes the heart sick,
but a dream fulfilled is a tree of life.-Proverbs 13:12, NLT
To some, it’s just a day we get to exchange overpriced Hallmark cards and ingest countless of chocolate eggs until over dosing on sugar, while innocently (or intentionally) blurring its significance of hope because we can’t or won’t deal with the matter of life or death. We know death is unstoppable, but why think about its morbidness on such a joyful day?
Now that I think of it, why EVER think about it? Especially on an ordinary day like almost every day of the calendar?
Last year’s April 16th wasn’t Easter or any major holiday, it was just an ordinary Saturday. Before that day, there were plenty of other days, ordinary days, I chose not to think about death. Every time I did think about death, fear would invade every aspect of my life. Whenever I think about death, it becomes an obsession. The what, when, where, why, how questions would flood my brain to the point of keeping me idle and isolated as to avoid anything that could possibly kill me. So, I did my best and I deferred.
But April 16, 2016 was one of those days I didn’t think I’d remember, but one picture brings a plethora of memories and emotions.
Because for the first time in my mother’s diagnosis, I thought of death. Her death.
She loved to sing to Joshie, which is exactly what she was doing in this picture. But I can actually tell you this isn’t why I took this picture. I took it because of what was going on behind the scenes and inside my heart.
And surprisingly, there’s a conversation between Jesus and Martha that mimics my prayers during this very moment,
Now Martha said to Jesus, “Lord, if You had been here, my brother would not have died. But even now I know that whatever You ask of God, God will give You.”
Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise again.”
Martha said to Him, “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day.”
Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live. And whoever lives and believes in Me shall never die. Do you believe this?”
She said to Him, “Yes, Lord, I believe that You are the Christ, the Son of God, who is to come into the world.”
-John 11:21-27
My mom was still with us last year (in case you didn’t know that was my mom in the picture). She died two months after this picture was taken, but her constant hospital stays were already a sign she didn’t have much time left with us.
Since I had been deferring hope/creating false hope, I remember taking this picture only because this was my first dose of reality. “My mom might not be with us this time next year,” I thought and wrestled with God.
Just like Martha knew a lot of things, I knew then I might not have another chance in capturing a moment like this between my son and his grandmother. She had already missed his first birthday due to surgery. The signs were all there haunting me… this joyful moment was clouded by somber thoughts about death. This picture, although warm and fuzzy, tells a different story.
But before this image, I’d tell those who knew about my mom’s declining health that “she’ll be fine, she’s beaten it a couple of times already… I know she’ll come out of it again.”
Plenty of times we confuse deferring hope with losing it. I knew I wasn’t hopeless, but I was in between of that and hopeful. When we defer or create false hope, we are merely ignoring the weight of the matter because we don’t want to bear with the heavy outcome ahead of us. We become runaways. We refuse to feel pain without realizing that in due time, pain will always catch up with us. Like the Proverb claims, “hope deferred makes the heart sick…”
In Martha’s case, she was also torn in between of what she knew and what she didn’t believe in her heart. Her younger brother, Lazarus, just died and Jesus was too late to save him. Jesus had healed so many yet He let one of his closest friends die. She knew to ask the big “what if,” and she certainly knew to tell Jesus what she knew about Him. But Jesus saw beyond her words, He stared into the depth of her heart.
He asked her what I believe He asks every one who claim to follow Him,
“Great, I know you know all of this… but that’s not what I’m asking…do you believe ME?”
And I can picture Martha pause for a minute or two, perhaps that’s what I would have done.
At that point, what do I say? I can’t lie. He already knows the truth, it is written in my sorrowful eyes and tender heart. I do believe, but… why did You allow [blank] to happen?
Our head knowledge may send one message out of our mouths, but we often must rise above the difficulty of translating our deepest hurts into our hearts. Because, in case you weren’t aware, there’s tension between what we know and how we feel. Many claim they have great faith, but a very few pass the test of faith and for us who don’t, we are often retested on the same subject until we finally get it. Because in the end, hope deferred WILL make our hearts sick with bitterness and disillusionment. It is better to confront it head-on than try to escape it. I may not be a skilled runner, but trust me when I say this, it WILL catch up to you even if you run faster than the wind.
You keep track of all my sorrows.
You have collected all my tears in your bottle.
You have recorded each one in your book.-Psalm 58:8, NLT
Finally, my obsession with death also made me forget the significance of the resurrection. Without death, there is NO resurrection. Without the tears and the heartaches and life’s disappointments, we will be left with nothing to hope for…
If we always get our heart’s desires and if He gives us all we expect, God would never be able to exceed our expectations and we’d grow accustomed to our fortune, which could lead us to completely relinquish our faith. We become our own god. Selfish and self-reliant, unlike the God we actually serve. But we must never give ourselves such title because we could never achieve what Jesus did on the cross in meekness and His love for humanity.
You see, we were made to hope.
And we were made to spread hope, but too many times we choose to dwell and focus on the pain and we forsake to look to the One who can truly heal us from our despair. We then abandon our calling to give hope to those who really need it the most. To the vulnerable. To the suffering. To the hopeless. To the forgotten ones…
It’s true, life isn’t fair. It would have been much easier if Lazarus didn’t die. But if he hadn’t died, we would have missed a miracle.
My mom died. Did we miss the miracle?
That’s been a question roaming my mind since her passing, but every day that passes by, I see a God who wept (John 11:35) with me and consoled me in my grief. I now intimately know the God my mom knew when she also wrestled with her cancer. And I know and believe He is good. I know and believe He had to break me from my selfish ways for me to care for those He cares for because I didn’t care enough. I only knew of Him, but He had to take one of my dearest and closest persons away to make me see what I refused to see. He took away the person who introduced me to Him, the greatest mentor He could have ever given me, my mother. And now He’s blessed me with the honor to pass her legacy on.
He was always in front of me, yet I deferred.
If anything should give you hope is this:
The One who not only resurrected his friend from the dead, but also He Himself rose to life when everyone, including His own disciples, deemed Him dead.
Even those who loved Him and knew Him in the flesh doubted His resurrection yet God didn’t give up on them, and in fact, performed incredible miracles through them despite the fact they ever doubted Him.
This Easter, celebrate the truth of His victory. He’s conquered death. He’s risen!
Hey, Baptize my mind
For these seeds to give birth to life
First they must die
-Baptize My Mind, Jon Foreman
Ally Velsor 