UNREASONABLE HOPE
I decided not to save the best for last.
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It came to me as a final musing,
the last turned corner at the end of my walk.
One foot and then the other.
Arms swinging in perfect cadence.
The whole of me knowing exactly when to stop.
None of this happens by accident, came revelation.
Not one movement of my body
without my mind first giving the command.
If I did not tell my waist to roll over this morning,
if I did not send word to my feet that it was time to get up,
the bed would become a coffin,
where motion ceases
and life rehearses its end.
Five years ago diagnosis shook both mind and body—
hard and resonant,
a questioning of everything I thought I knew.
Until then I believed I was the master of my destiny.
Instead, I learned my cells were going rogue.
Still, every day since,
my body has answered me.
It has risen, walked, breathed,
unconscious dictates of a busy mind.
This is the paradox that overwhelms me:
a body that both listens and ignores,
is faithful and insurgent to my requests.
Remarkably, the miraculous embeds itself in everyday healing.
A cut finger, a broken bone, a bruised knee.
We cover with bandage, cast, or stitch,
and wait for the quiet choreography beneath the skin.
Platelets rush like first responders,
weaving a seal before I can find the gauze.
Bone sets to work to knit together,
skin executes the perfect close.
We never doubt these mercies—
these most visible to the human eye.
So why, when the wounds are hidden,
is this same healing power denied?
The body is no less faithful when the damage is unseen.
It still heals, cell by cell—
the pulse keeping time,
the liver sifting night,
the gut renewing like morning,
the lymph clearing away what no longer serves.
Healing belongs to built-in systems beyond my sight,
that follow the rhythm I create
through what is believed,
hoped for,
prayed.
The mind sets the tempo—
discord when fear rehearses,
harmony when hope holds steady.
Cortisol rises or quiets.
Inflammation fans out or draws back.
Natural killers wake, T-cells remember,
growth signals whisper: Rebuild here.
Hope.
A word worn thin by repetition,
underestimated by those who think small.
We define it by our own limits.
But what if we chose a kind of hope that’s unreasonable?
The kind that confounds and won’t quietly sit down?
Hope like this is found in turmoil,
in the depth of the dark night.
It is not denial of something wrong,
but radical agreement with what could go right.
In the space between diagnosis and miracle
there’s a holy middle ground,
embedded in the ing.
This is the land of Unreasonable Hope—
the place between what is broken
and what will ultimately come back to life.
This is the ing of healing.
The agreement with the body’s design to mend,
as much in the invisible places
as in the ones daily seen.
We pray, God, heal me.
But is it possible that heal…ing carries its own miracle?
That the work is already underway—
in the unseen of repairing,
in the cadenced unveiling of time?
Healing is not only gift;
it is process
that depends on our willingness to agree.
It sounds like this:
Rise.
Walk.
Breathe.
Heal.
Every cell already knows the score—
the music written,
the record kept,
the body’s quiet accounting,
its memory of wholeness,
its healing already written into design:
to close what is torn,
to knit what is broken,
to renew what has grown thin.
This is unreasonable hope:
agreement with design,
participation in the daily work of repair,
until what was hidden begins to surface,
and what once seemed impossible
takes form—
healing, still unfolding,
written into flesh and bone.
NOTES
The body is never idle.
Every second, repair is underway.
Platelets rush within moments of injury, sealing what is torn.
The gut renews its lining every five days,
skin replaces itself in two weeks,
bone quietly reshapes across a lifetime.
What we call “healing” is not the exception —
it is the rhythm of life.
We are always being remade.
The mind is not Spectator.
It sets the tempo.
It tells the immune system whether to rally or retreat.
It tells hormones whether to soothe or to rage.
the body whether there is discord or harmony.
Hope is not fragile wishing.
It is the most biological, most spiritual act we are given.
It is agreement with the design already at work,
and the decision to join in—
to compel the body toward wholeness
by aligning thought, belief, and Spirit with repair.
Healing is never static.
It is wound…closing.
Bone…knitting.
Mind…agreeing.
Spirit…prompting.
Every moment is the ing of restoration.
How do we join this design?
~Position the mind in agreement.
~Stop doing what destroys.
~Give the body what it needs.
Ten Healing Thoughts to Accelerate the Process
I am healing, right now, in the ing. — Jeremiah 30:17
Every cell in me knows how to mend. — Psalm 139:14
My body remembers wholeness in its continual becoming. — Isaiah 58:11
I agree with peace, not fear. — John 14:27
I am not my diagnosis; I am a creation in repair. — 2 Corinthians 5:17
I welcome the Spirit’s prompting within me, moment by moment. — Romans 8:14
I release what harms so space is made for what heals. — Hebrews 12:1
My thoughts are medicine, joining the body in its healing work. — Proverbs 17:22
Joy strengthens me; bitterness weakens me. I choose joy. — Nehemiah 8:10
This moment is enough. Healing belongs to today. — Matthew 6:34