New Reminders: Hope

Almost everyone faces some daunting circumstances during their lifetime: a serious health issue, a financial or other loss, a project gone wrong, a relationship ending, or a job we have devoted our life to is suddenly gone.  No matter what has brought us into our darkest place, and its feelings of despair, we need to remember that there is always hope.  Even people who have been diagnosed with a terminal illness have beat the odds and survived long after reputable doctors have predicted their demise, yet they lived.

We need to think of hope like breathing, we definitely will not live long without it, so we need to fight to maintain it.  As long as we can keep hope alive, we can go on living and somehow regain the confidence that we can climb out of whatever deep crevasse we have fallen into.

The decision to hope, is a life preserver we can grab onto.  We don’t have to know exactly what is at the other end of the rope to believe that whatever it is anchored to, will hold.  All we need to do is to hang on for dear life and start to believe we can pull ourselves out.  We might need some help, but it is ultimately up to us to make the decision to struggle through and look for the footholds we need to make it out.  Even if we can’t see the opening right away, we know it has to be there, because if there was a way in, there also has to be a way out.  Just keep breathing and hope will find a way.

The poet Emily Dickinson’s poem that starts: “Hope, is the thing with feathers – That perches in the soul –And sings the tune without the words –And never stops – at all".  It’s a lovely image that uses a bird as a metaphor for hope.  She notes that hope is a feeling that “perches” on the soul and is always there.  She goes on to suggest that even a tiny creature can withstand a ferocious storm and come out the other side, still able to fly, implying that we too can rise up and fly.

Whatever it takes, where there is hope, there is also courage and strength to back it up. Sometimes, just knowing we are not alone in our struggle, brings out our best qualities to rise above almost any situation.

“Even youths grow tired and weary, and young men stumble and fall; but those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength.  They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary; they will walk and not be faint.” Isaiah 40:30-31