Hope

If it weren't for my HOPE...I would have killed myself as a child. Yes, really.

Hope is a wonderful gift for us. Hope and resiliency. We get knocked down, and we get up again. Fight a new day. Rest when we need to rest. Hope is our saving grace

For me, I was taught about Jesus as a child. But I wonder if it was all of that indoctrination that did it...or the fact that in my one memory of being raped by my father, I saw Jesus holding my fractured self. The part of my almost three year old being that fractured from my soul was being held by this energy I know as Jesus. He held my face to his chest and cried as he watched the atrocity on the bed in front of him.

From that point on, Jesus was the link to my hope.

I felt sure that one day, things would change and I would be able to leave that home and find peace.

There were times that I felt no hope. I felt fear, anger, defeat, and the trauma eating at my soul.

But something always reminded me that Hope was a choice and that choice to hope would give me peace in the storm. Like a rainbow in the dark.

Hope isn't a lazy thought or belief. Hope is an action verb.

One cannot maintain hope without putting action with it. Even if the action is drying your eyes and fighting, or resting. But hope never gives up!

"Hope springs eternal"

It is ever moving and is a choice. An action.

To me, hope and resiliency go hand in hand. We need to be resilient to bounce back with renewed vigor as we hope. We learn and gain resiliency each time we get back up after being knocked down. The trick to getting the good stuff we are hoping for in life? Get back up without resentment.

The more I have let go of resentment, the less time depression and anger have stripped from my life.The more I get up, the easier it gets. The more I let go and get up...the more love I feel for others in a similar process. Then the more I heal and gain what I've been hoping to have in my life. What i have been WORKING toward.

Hope is action. It isn't just sitting and hoping. It isn't just running around working either. It's being kind to your body/mind and kind to others. Even when we set boundaries that cuts others' toxic behavior from our lives...we are being kind. Working toward that for which we hope. Resting when we need, and continuing our march toward our goal in hope.

I was reading in a group about maintaining our hope for the indictments we know are coming so that we can be rid of this malignancy in our government. And I wrote some of this about that...but hope is incredibly necessary for ALL of us.

We can still have indictments and drops after tomorrow. Hope is prominent. It isn't weak. Hope takes strength and conviction.

My hope is that we maintain our hope with vigilant resistance! <3 Hope never dies unless we kill it. I see hope it every nuance of the earth's movement 🌈 When a blanket of snow covers the earth...the hope is when the thaw comes, the life will come forth.

We are in the 'waiting for Spring phase' in many ways. All of us in various ways are waiting, working, hoping. Keep hoping. Find that thing that helps you to continue. It's not over until it's over...

(pic from County Cork on the ride back to Cork City after our wedding in 2014)