Borrowed Hope

James Tissot, Healing of the Paralytic

Warning: This article discusses suicide and substance abuse.

On September 7, 1996, I embarked on one of the most difficult challenges of my life—getting sober from drugs and alcohol. I had been on methadone for more than two years—a legal drug that was supposed to help me detox from heroin. Instead, I had traded one form of slavery for another, becoming just as hopelessly addicted to it as I was to heroin.

The methadone detox process was physically excruciating. And the process of getting sober was mentally and emotionally the hardest thing I have ever experienced. Facing the carnage I’d left in my wake was overwhelming. I knew what I was going through was difficult. What I didn’t know was whether it was possible.

In Narcotics Anonymous, I met people who had walked this road before me. They didn't just tell me that recovery was hard—I already knew that. Instead, they offered me something far more powerful: hope.

I met people who had been where I was and had not only amassed years, even decades, of sobriety, but they were “happy, joyous, and free.” They led me along the rocky road of recovery by sharing their experience, strength, and hope. When it felt like I couldn’t face one more day, they told me to “Take one day at a time.” When I thought things would never get better, they said things like, “This too shall pass,” and “Don’t give up five minutes before the miracle happens.” And when I struggled to believe it was possible, they told me to “Believe that they believed.”

Through God’s grace and borrowed hope, I got sober.

Their shared wisdom carried me through many trials that extended beyond sobriety from alcohol and drugs to things like potentially life-altering medical diagnoses, toxic relationships, panic attacks, and anxiety and depression. It is impossible to name the gifts given to me by men and women in recovery. I’ve drawn on all I gained from them for twenty-nine years now. But perhaps the single greatest gift they gave me was hope.

And that is what I want to offer you today.

Honestly, I had a different article planned for this month. But midway through the writing process, I received a text about someone I knew who had recently died by suicide. It was the second one in two weeks.

Sometimes life knocks the wind out of you. Other times, it lays you flat and pins you to the ground. When you are laid low, covered in dust and ashes, you don’t need a reminder that life is difficult. You are well aware. When the challenges of life keep you awake through the night, or when you are walking through prolonged seasons of hardship, you need more than acceptance of your circumstances. You need more than well-meaning voices offering superficial comfort—declaring that everything will be fine when clearly it's not, applying spiritual band-aids to wounds that require supernatural healing. You need more than powerless platitudes and superficial succor applied to your very real pain.

You need to know that what you are going through is temporary and that it does not have the final say in your life. You need to know there is life on the other side of your pain.

You need to know there is hope.

But I know how difficult it can be to hold onto hope. I’ve been there. When suffering lingers and relief tarries, hope feels fragile, like a threadbare garment. When the darkness will not lift, we face a crisis of hope.

This is a tenuous time in a believer’s life, a time when we are vulnerable to the enemy’s lies:

“You are all alone.”
“No one understands.”
“No one cares.”
“This is never going to get better.”
“I will never get better.”
“It’s always going to be this way.”
“I can’t do this anymore.”
“God doesn’t care.”
“It’s hopeless.”

These lies isolate us and chip away at our hope, convincing us that we're alone in our struggle and that God is distant or disinterested. Jesus warned us that the enemy aims to steal, kill, and destroy, but he came that we may have life (John 10:10). This hope we have through Christ is a steadfast anchor for our souls. If the enemy wants to immobilize us, what better way than to steal, kill, and destroy our hope?

Throughout Jesus’ ministry, he encountered many men and women who were afflicted and desperate for relief. Some cried out, even when those around them tried to silence them (Mark 10:46-52). Others pressed through the crowds, just to touch the hem of his garment (Mark 5:25-34). And some crossed national, political, and social barriers in order to get to Jesus (Matthew 8:5-13).

But how do you get to Jesus when your strength has failed and hope feels futile? What do you do when, no matter how hard you try, you can’t get to Jesus?

In Mark 2, Jesus was in Capernaum. News about him had spread, and he was beginning to draw large crowds. One particular day, Jesus was at a home teaching, and a large crowd was gathered around him—so much so that there was no more room, not even in the doorway. While he was speaking, a group of people arrived carrying a paralytic man. They attempted to push their way through the crowds to get to Jesus. But no matter how hard they tried, they couldn’t reach him.

Can you imagine how it felt to be the man on the mat in that moment? You’re unable to do anything for yourself. Others have literally and metaphorically carried you to Jesus, in hopes that he would see you and heal you. Only to have your last shred of hope disintegrate when the large crowd makes it impossible for you to get to Jesus. I can imagine myself saying, “It’s no use, but thanks for trying.”

But this man’s friends were not willing to give up hope. They believed Jesus had the power and willingness to heal their friend. So they carried him up to the roof and started digging. They chipped away at the roof bit by bit, until they had made a hole large enough to lower him down, laying him right at the feet of Jesus. And when Jesus saw their faith, he forgave the man’s sins and healed his body.

While there’s much theological meat to chew on in this passage, the thing I want to emphasize is this: Hope is communal.

We weren’t meant to do life alone. There are times when life feels so bleak, and hope so unattainable, that we need the hope of others to sustain us. The man may have been carried to Jesus by the faith of his friends, but he walked out on his own two feet.

This doesn't happen overnight. At first, you might feel like me in early recovery, barely able to stand on your own two feet and clinging to the hope of others. But there came a time in my recovery when the hope I had borrowed from others became my own—when “believing that they believed” grew into “I believe because I've seen for myself.”

Borrowed hope is not meant to keep you dependent on others forever, but to sustain you until your own hope is restored and strengthened. And eventually, you will be able to carry others to Jesus, allowing them to borrow your hope until they, too, can walk on their own.

Throughout our lives, we will experience both positions of strength and weakness, both times of offering hope and times of drawing on the hope of others. This is the gift of communal hope.

When you are facing a crisis of hope, it is important to find those who can carry you to Jesus. It might look like calling a trusted friend, or asking your small group to pray for you, or asking a mentor to walk with you through a difficult season. Sometimes it's reading or listening to those who've walked through darkness before you and letting their stories of God’s sustaining grace breathe fresh hope into you.

But reaching out can feel impossible when shame whispers that you're a burden, or when pride insists you should be able to handle this alone. Remember, the enemy wants to isolate you and convince you that no one will understand or care, that there is no hope. But even Jesus asked others to be with him and to pray when he was greatly troubled in the garden of Gethsemane (Matthew 26:36-56).

Maybe you don't even know who to turn to. Start small. Send one text. Make one phone call. Ask one person to meet you for coffee. Make one appointment with a counselor. Like those who carried the paralytic to Jesus, the faith of others can carry you until you can walk on your own again.

So if you are struggling to find hope right now, let me lend you mine.

It will pass. You will get through it. It will not always be this way. You will laugh again. You will see beauty and experience joy. That does not mean it won’t be hard, maybe even feel impossible. And when that feels too hard to believe, believe that I believe it.

I don’t know how long your struggle will last. I don’t know how it will turn out. I don’t know when Jesus will return and bring a full end to all suffering. But what I do know is this: you are one day closer to the other side.

And in that we have hope.