A few years ago a friend of mine and I were doing our morning walk together when he told me about this seventeen year old boy in Mulund who had been diagnosed with blood cancer. “The family is devastated,” he said gloomily. “I know someone else who had the same disease and came out of it,” I said, “let’s bring the two together.”
“Supposing it doesn’t work, and the young boy doesn’t survive?” “We have to take that chance,” I said, “what we are doing is giving the family a glimmer of hope with which they can build on.”
Jean Kerr said, “Hope is the feeling you have, that the feeling you have, isn’t permanent.” It is what we have when we know that we will eventually survive the night and bask in sunshine once again. It does not deny the present darkness, but it reminds us that dawn is coming.
Brigadier General Robinson Risner (“Robbie”) spent seven years as a Prisoner of War in a North Vietnam compound. There he discovered the power of hope. He spent four and a half years of that time in isolation. He endured ten months of total darkness. Those ten months were the longest of his life. When they boarded up his little seven-by-seven foot cell, shutting out the light, he wondered if he was going to make it. He had already been under intense physical and mental duress after years of confinement.
And now, not a glimmer of light shone into his cell – or into his soul. Robbie spent hours a day exercising and praying. One day Robbie got down on the floor and crawled under his bunk. He located a vent that let in outside air. As he pressed against the vent, he saw a faint glimmer of light reflected on the inside wall of the opening. Robbie put his eye next to the cement wall and discovered a minute crack in the construction. It allowed him to glimpse outside, but was so small that all he could see was one blade of grass. A single blade of grass and a faint ray of light. But when he stared at the sight, he felt a surge of joy, excitement and gratitude like he hadn’t known in years. “It represented life, growth, and freedom,” he later said, “and I knew God had not forgotten me.” It was a tiny glimmer hope that sustained Robbie through an unbearable ordeal.
The human spirit is strong. It seems to run forever on nothing but a morsel of hope. Without it, you have nothing. With it, nothing else matters. Let us look around and see to whom we can give a glimmer of hope. Can we connect those who have recovered from the virus to those who are now affected? It may be a small beam of light we can throw, but that glimmer could be the beginning of wonders and miracles. Throw your hope line out today..!
