Holding on to Hope

Teresa and I sat with great interest (along with a lot of America) to watch the Diane Sawyer interview of Jaycee Dugard.  She was, as you remember, the now young woman who was kidnapped and held hostage by a pedophile for nearly 20 years.  She gave birth to two children while a captive of her abductor.  Even in captivity, Jaycee found joy in being a mother to two daughters who had value for her, regardless of who their father was or the circumstances of their origins. Though not totally Christian, there were several “take aways” for us after the interview closed, most of them surrounding the word hope.

It is clear from her experience and “stolen life” that hope and revenge cannot occupy the same heart and remain healthy. It is clear that Jaycee had exactly the right therapist and the right kind of therapy following her re-entry into the world.  Her language was devoid of the kind of talk that we might expect, desires to get even or make someone pay for what happened in the same way she had. That means that hope and anger cannot occupy the same heart, for if that attempt is made, anger will assume first place and create hopelessness.  How she knew to give up on that and adapt to her circumstances was not clear, but that she had done so truly was.

Hope, even in the worst of circumstances lives best in community.  Though she had no assurances she would ever see her mother again, she continued to remember her and believe she would.  For the duration of her captivity, she made sure to live in community with another being.  First a spider, then cats, then her daughters and even her plants gave her a sense that she was not alone and had some purpose and object for her normal affections that could not be given to her captors.  Her thoughts of getting back to those things even when abuse was occurring kept her sane enough to survive.

Hope, even in the worst of circumstances, lives best when true love has been experienced and memories have been made.  Jaycee never forgot looking at the moon and remembering when she and her mother had been together doing so.  The experience helped her believe that she would do that again someday.

Finally, hope lives best when we see the truth of the past for what it was and know we have overcome that past.  At least twice, the subject of shame was introduced into the conversation and Jaycee responded by saying something to the effect that “those things were his shame, not mine.”  How right she is, and yet, she refuses to be a continual victim of her past.

In our own days of discouragement, which would most often pale in comparison to what this young woman has been through, it can be hard to hold onto hope that things will get better.  And, perhaps, that is one of the best take-aways from the interview.  If we place it in the appropriate things, it remains.  If we do not, it cannot.  Jaycee never gave up on the hope she would leave that compound and its horrors, but she didn’t hope solely in escape.  She found hope in many things that were already part of her life.

For us, of course, we hope in a risen One – in a person, not just a circumstance or event.  To be sure, the event has changed the world in every way and hope can now reign as we share community, become aware of our past and His forgiveness, give up on our desire for anger and revenge, and make memories that carry us through the rough patches of life.  And one more thing – He hopes in us. God is making His appeal to the world through us, that the world might be reconciled to Him.

See you soon in the hopeful place,
Pastor Mark