Hope is healing, not restoration. In healing, scars remain where wounds once gaped. The original is not recreated as it once was, but has been changed into something new. Each mark, each reshaping, each grotesque malformation of flesh and soul are reminders of what once was but no longer is. A reminder of where one has been, but not a dictator of where one must go. Hope lies not in forgetting but in remembering.

Trauma is to be thrown into the darkness against one’s will. The body and mind are overpowered by that which no human can understand or control. It is to have a part of your soul executed, leaving the body to forever walk a path that is neither fully life nor fully death, but to live somewhere in between. As such, Daniel’s praise to the God of heaven makes sense to me and gives me hope.

For me, hope lies in the darkness. In the book of Daniel, the king asks the astrologers to do an impossible task. One that no one on earth can do. It is too difficult. No one can reveal understanding to the king except the gods. So, Daniel… asks the gods.

He reveals deep and hidden things; he knows what lies in darkness, and light dwells with him.

The hope that emerges from trauma is to know what lies in darkness. Deep and hidden, ineffable things are revealed to you. An understanding of what is said in the silence of a wounded heart is obtained. The hope is to know that light still dwells with you.

Hope lies in that you are now a witness, not a victim. You have walked in the shadow of death but did not cross over. You have been in the darkness, and your body reemerged. To bear witness to that darkness creates an opportunity to summon pieces of you that were left behind. To bear witness to what is in the darkness is to shine your light back into it, illuminating and revealing yourself to another; that you might see yourself again, too.

Hope lies in the darkness. The darkness that is contained within the scars of healing, that you will always carry with you. That dark hope is a reminder to remember that no one can reveal understanding but the gods, who do not use words. So, to put words into the darkness is to dispel it. To vocalize witness to the darkness is to strip it of its power. To tell of what happened there is to expose the fear, the pain, and the suffering to the light, until only hope remains.