HOPE

Hope has become one of my life words, so much so, that if I get another tattoo, the word hope will be the integral part of it. I really don’t know what it is about this word that has gripped me, but it’s beginning to show up in various places in my home in the form of paintings and ornaments and signs, I’ve scribbled it on the top of cars in snow, and now in my heart. Hope is expectation, much like Advent, but even more than that, there is a certain confidence and assuredness that are the legs of hope that carry me through the times when hope is so dim I can barely find it in the darkness.

I have so many unanswered whys in my life right now. I often get stuck in why world. Why is the hurricane that dims the light of hope in my life. As I learned nearly eight years ago when I buried my brother, sometimes why never gets answered, not in any way I will ever understand this side of heaven anyway.

I’m stuck in why world right now and the only reason I’m not a basket case is hope. I still have hope, that even if I don’t get answers, even if I don’t get resolution, even if the wind still howls outside my window, that I can confidently expect that Change will happen.

I had a gut check this afternoon. I looked in the mirror and asked myself what kind of person I was and how I wanted to be remembered. Over and again in my mind, the word hope appeared and I know that’s how I want to be remembered, as a person who hoped against hope.

Therefore, I will not let go of hope, though life and circumstances and hurt and disappointment stomp on my fingers with all the force of what feels like the weight of why world.