“Hope springs eternal.” That is a definite truism. In these exceptionally stressful and challenging times, hope must never leave us — we should never abandon it. It is precisely at times like this, that hope and faith can be our only personal power.
“Hope is a beautiful thing. It gives us peace and strength, and keeps us going when all seems lost. Accepting what you cannot change doesn’t mean you have given up on hope. It just means you have to focus your hope on more humanely tangible and attainable goals.” – Julie Donner Andersen
What is hope?
Hope can be big, or it can be small. No where is it written that hope needs to be bigger than life. In fact, sometimes hope is just a small thought in our mind…a wish or desire that we keep alive in our heart. But hope can also be huge — it can be a burning desire for something good that seems to fill our every thought and sustains us during the most challenging of times.
“You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, ‘I lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along.” – Eleanor Roosevelt
Today, perhaps more than ever, we need to have hope. We’re all scared and the uncertainty has enveloped us all. This fear and uneasiness should be uniting us, but unfortunately, the deep political rift that grips the land is not letting that soothing unity happen. The often ambiguous and rudderless “leadership” we’re seeing from the top is not helping matters either. That has to stop. We need to come together and let hope and faith be the power that sustains us and propels us forward. That hope and faith starts within each of us and we’re obliged to let that feeling of hope radiate outward, so that we’re infusing that positivity into others.
“People are basically the same the world over. Everybody wants the same things – to be happy, to be healthy, to be at least reasonably prosperous, and to be secure. They want friends, peace of mind, good family relationships, and hope that tomorrow is going to be even better than today.” – Zig Ziglar
If we can’t right now come together physically, let us all commit to doing so spiritually – to share the same feelings of faith and hope and the same desires for peace, harmony and goodness. Think good thoughts. Share a smile with everyone you see, because even at 6 feet apart, that smile’s power can close the gap. Love one another and wish them the best. If you’re a person of faith, retreat into that faith for a boost of peace and joy. Yes, its tough right now, but we will get through this. Our elders have seen so much and they remind us that if they could make it through the calamities they’ve survived, so will we.
To help inspire your hope, here are some beautiful quotes from Cornelia “Corrie” ten Boom:
“Never be afraid to trust an unknown future to a known God.”
“Do you know what hurts so very much? It’s love. Love is the strongest force in the world, and when it is blocked that means pain. There are two things we can do when this happens. We can kill that love so that it stops hurting. But then of course part of us dies, too. Or we can ask God to open up another route for that love to travel.”
“Any concern too small to be turned into a prayer is too small to be made into a burden.”
“Worry is like a rocking chair: it keeps you moving but doesn’t get you anywhere.”
“Memories are the key not to the past, but to the future. I know that the experiences of our lives, when we let God use them, become the mysterious and perfect preparation for the work He will give us to do.”
“Happiness isn’t something that depends on our surroundings; it’s something we make inside ourselves.”
“Faith is like radar that sees through the fog—to the reality of things at a distance that the human eye cannot see.”
No matter how dark things seem, they will get better. There is always light at the end of the tunnel and no matter how long that tunnel seems, the light is there all the same. Keep hope and faith alive in your hearts and trust that with universal hope, we’ll get to the end of that dark tunnel sooner than later.
“Our happiness depends on the habit of mind we cultivate. So practice happy thinking every day. Cultivate the merry heart, develop the happiness habit, and life will become a continual feast.” – Norman Vincent Peale
