My Anchor, My Hope, My God
By Litzy Lima, English Education and Spanish
Imagine coming home from school and witnessing the strongest woman you know lying on a hospice bed in your living room, fighting to survive. Imagine hearing the words, “She is going to die.” Imagine hearing the words, “She is gone.” Imagine looking out into the crowd on your graduation day and not seeing her, your role model, the only person you wanted there. What do you do? Who would you look to, lean on? Would you scream, fight, bawl your eyes out?
I undoubtedly looked toward HOPE. Many ask: “How did you do it? How did you have hope even after she was gone?” And my answer is by fully relying on my faith — the only constant in my life.
In less than a year, I witnessed how stage 4 terminal Breast Cancer leisurely took my lovely grandmother away. Nothing could have prepared me for how quickly life changed. One day, we were joyfully celebrating her birthday, and the next, my family and I were in Guatemala, her mother country, weeping over her grave. I tried leaning on my parents, sister, or anyone else; however, I felt as if no one could take the crushing burden off my back, as if I were drowning in the hurricane called life.
It wasn’t until I fully leaned on my faith, on my God, that I felt the relentless anxiety and sorrow slowly subside. I recall being in the safety of my cousin’s room, staring up at the ceiling, kneeling on the floor, heart pounding out of my chest, my black eyes glistening with tears when I wailed with sorrow, “God, I am terrified! What hope do I have?” Immediately, I remembered the story of Jesus Christ, the son of God. How he — an innocent man sent by God himself — decided to take the place of you and me on a cross. He was whipped, ridiculed, and nailed to the cross; however, his pain was temporary because, on the third day of being perished, he rose from the dead. Demonstrating to the whole world that the hope and trust they had in Jesus was not in vain because not even death had a hold of him. Thus, in my most vulnerable moment — hours after burying my grandmother — on the floor of my cousin’s room, I felt a blanket of warmth surrounding me, the overwhelming love of God. The hope that God will be there for me like he was for Jesus.
Maybe my grandmother was gone, but my God was not. He was there when I hugged my grandmother for the last time, there when I accepted my diploma without my grandmother being present, and there when I walked back into my living room without her being there. My faith is the hope and trust that everything that happens in my life will turn out for the good. Trust there is someone greater protecting me.
In a world that is constantly changing and filled with heartbreak, my faith in the goodness of God becomes the only constant — my anchor in the storm.
The blog posts in Forward. Together. are intended to foster an inclusive community of empathy and curiosity at Doane University by providing a glimpse into various individual identities and worldviews. These are community members’ unique stories and should not be presumed to be the experience of all who share the same identity.
