03 December, 2009

Hope

“There’s no hope.”

The words came through the phone line piercing my heart in a way that the speaker could not have understood.  

Hope?  No hope?  How can there not be hope?

I remember sitting in the bleachers waiting to cheer the next basketball game.  Uniforms on, the three of us sat chatting and complaining about the fit of the shoes and sorting through the cheers that we would do to start the game.  The conversation transitioned, as conversations tend to do, finding us talking about what our names could have been were they chosen at that point to fit our personalities.  

“Hope” agreed the other two as they looked at me.  “You would be Hope.”

This is likely what the guy thought as well as he, seven years later, suggested that he could see me driving a yellow VW Bug with a peace sticker on the bumper.  

“Hope.”

The word and concept seem to be an ever recurring theme in my life.  I have lived with hope.  I have put my trust and faith in hope.  I worked to have a career that, in its own way, worked with the idea of… hope.  

I believe in hope – in opportunities and options and that mistakes are things that we learn from and can work through.  I believe in hope.  

Things don’t seem to be going well, we try something new.  We hope for a different result.  

There doesn’t seem to be a way out or we feel lost – we don’t have answers… There is hope.  There is always hope.

There is always hope in my life.  The bright, sparkling, stream of light that peaks through the clouds and shimmers on whatever it touches regardless of how big or how small.  It is hope that puts the issue or the challenge in perspective.  It is hope that aluminates the shadows allowing us to see what we couldn’t see before.  It is hope that opens the windows and the doors to let the opportunities pour through.  

I have to admit that my belief in hope has, at times, turned me in to a bit of a Pollyanna.  I have a tendency to trust in hope while those around me would like to see me man the barricades, load the weapons, and prepare for battle.  

Yet, I hope.  

Does it mean I don’t fight?  Does it mean that I won’t protect myself and my child?  Does it mean that I am not the most powerful and fierce Mamma Tiger on the block at times?  

No, it just means that I believe in hope.  

If there isn’t hope… if we are without hope…

What do we have if we don’t have hope?

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