We sometimes try to fit the elderly, disabled, needy, and suffering into our twisted, shallow, and foolishly optimistic visions of the world, but of course it doesn’t work. It doesn’t work because sufferers, the ones fallen or falling apart, are outposts of a different sort of world.

I inhabit a world that is not how it should be, but will one day be remade. My pain is not dismissed; my hope is neither false nor shallow. Creation groans, yet it thrills with a hope that can hold both the heights and the depths of my life.

If a healthier body looks to you like a new life or a new hope – my God, find a better hope.