Miracle Worker

I have heard this sentence much too often lately for my tastes, “It’s simply hopeless.” I don’t like it because it reminds me of myself and the way I sometimes feel. I don’t like it because it is pessimistic and does not even try to incorporate the positive. But mostly I don’t like it because it simply isn’t true – in any circumstance.

I have heard this despair filled remark said about world poverty and over-population. I’ve heard it said about illnesses. I’ve heard it said about debt and deficits. I’ve heard it said about civil rights. I’ve heard it said about unemployment and the nation’s economy. I’ve caught myself muttering it a time or two.

Now, I am not saying that every situation will turn out the way I hope it will. Quite the contrary – as we know, that rock-n-roll singing career I’ve been hoping for with my core girls from high-school – “The Cheap Sunglasses,” has not panned out as I’d planned. But hope has a point and a purpose.

If anyone had a reason to be hopeless it was Helen Keller. Helen was born a healthy, normal child but became sick at 19 months old with an illness that left her deaf and blind. However, her family would not let their young daughter languish in a silent and dark world. The family cook’s young daughter began to teach Helen household signs she made up to help Helen communicate with the family. The family was determined not to stop there. When Helen was six, her mother heard of another deaf-blind child that was being educated. Pursuits of that situation eventually lead to a meeting with Alexander Graham Bell. Bell recommended a Boston school for the blind. It was at this Boston school that the Kellers met Annie Sullivan, herself half blind, the woman who would become Helen’s personal teacher and friend. The relationship lasted 49 years.

If Helen ever felt hopeless it was Sullivan who brought hope to her chaotic, undisciplined world. Helen was enrolled in school and Sullivan taught Helen to speak, read fingers in the palm of her hand, and read Braille – in four different languages. (I have trouble enough with one and I can see!) Helen graduated magna cum laude from Radcliffe College with a Bachelors of Arts degree. Helen went on to live her life as a world famous speaker, author and political activist (warrenting her her own FBI file!). From a blind, deaf child to a world influencing adult – no wonder they called Annie Sullivan, The Miracle Worker.

Like Helen, I too have a Miracle Worker to bring me hope and create miracles where there is only darkness and silence. I heard someone say once that “you are not in line for a miracle until you have a problem nobody can solve but God.” I love that. It is stark in its truth and simplicity.

My Random House College Dictionary defines hope as “the feeling that what is desired is also possible.” So I suppose that when a situation is deemed hopeless a person no longer feels the desired outcome is possible. Here is the major flaw in hope’s definition – it is based on feelings. Anything based on feelings or emotions is going to be fickle. I am in a good mood; I have hope – I get in a bad mood; I lose hope. Feelings as a foundation for hope will always lead to disappointment and despair, unless I get exactly what I am hoping for and that rarely happens. So, I must look for a different foundation.

Jesus isn’t fickle. He does not waiver when my emotions do. When the wind begins to howl and my self-confidence begins to founder He gets stronger. “Those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength.” (Isaiah 40:31) There is a reason little children sing “when I am weak He is strong.” There is nothing – Nothing – Jesus cannot do. Man cannot do a lot – Jesus can do a lot. We only have to put our hope, our trust, in Him. And when we do He will never disappoint.

Like Annie Sullivan, it is the job of the hopeful to bring hope to those who have none. It may have been hopeless for Helen but it wasn’t for her family or for Sullivan. The hope my Miracle Worker brings and the miracles He performs – through those “Annie Sullivans” He uses to bring them – may or may not solve the immediate problem, but it always lifts those in need to new heights and brings light where there is darkness and joy where there is silence.

Keller wrote in her autobiography that upon discovering her first word - water - spelled out by Sullivan in the palm of Helen's hand, her "living world awakened her soul, gave it light, hope, joy, set it free!"

Hope for the hopeless. Sometimes just that simple gift is itself the miracle.

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