The Fear of Hope

This morning, I had my second PET scan.

It's strange how two and a half months can feel like both an instant and a lifetime.

Chronologically, it hasn't been that long since my first scan. But in every other way, it feels like I've lived years between them. Cancer has a way of doing that. It compresses and stretches time all at once.

As I lay still inside the machine this morning, waiting once again for answers I cannot control, I found myself face-to-face with a fear I didn't realize was still living inside me.

Not a fear of cancer.

Not even a fear of dying.

A fear of hope.

It feels almost embarrassing to admit.

Yet there it is.

Somewhere deep inside me is a lingering belief that if I hope too much, if I trust too confidently, if I say out loud that I think I am going to be okay, God might somehow decide otherwise.

As if hope itself is dangerous.

As if speaking faith aloud might invite disappointment.

I know how irrational it sounds.

I also know I am probably not the only one who feels this way.

Maybe your version isn't a cancer diagnosis. Maybe it's a struggling marriage, a prodigal child, financial uncertainty, infertility, chronic illness, or a prayer that has gone unanswered for years. Whatever the circumstance, many of us have learned to hold hope at arm's length. We convince ourselves that expecting less will somehow protect us from pain.

But what if that's not faith at all?

What if it's fear?

When Old Stories Return

Over the years, I have worked hard to reshape my understanding of God. Intellectually, I believe He is good. I believe He is kind. I believe He delights in His children. I believe He wants good things for us in the same way I want good things for my own children.

Yet something interesting happens when life becomes uncertain.

Old stories have a way of resurfacing.

The version of God I thought I had left behind suddenly reappears in moments of vulnerability. The God who withholds. The God who punishes. The God who says, "Don't get your hopes up." The God who is waiting for me to become too confident before pulling the rug out from under me.

I don't believe that is who God is.

But fear has a way of resurrecting old narratives we thought we had outgrown.

Waiting for PET scan results has revealed just how deeply some of those stories still linger beneath the surface.

And perhaps the gift of this season is not that cancer created these fears, but that it exposed them.

Because once something is brought into the light, healing can begin.