Hope tops the category of bare essentials.
Just like air and water, hope is vital. We all need hope. And it can be fleeting. Especially in this day, this very day where fear, sudden sickness, and looming death are intertwined with relinquishing our freedom and the human touch or hug becomes taboo.
Most of us face difficult times more often than we would like. We don’t quite have sainthood mastered yet like Mother Teresa or Pope John Paul II did. Wouldn’t it be great to text them and see how they feel about social distancing? No such luck. They had their turn. Now it’s our time. And our circumstances are unique. Even from theirs.
These difficult days are brought to the forefront as we hear one desperate story after another rivet out of the news media into our homes. Tragic situations seem to tear through our lives like molten lava consumes life and occupies its new space. Yet, just as hot lava is changed by water, so is fear harnessed when confronted with hope.
Feeling hope in our lives isn’t some fragrance we can just spray on or in a bottled drink we can sip. It’s not a pill or a vaccine. You can’t touch it, smell it or taste it. Like gravity, it has no physical form, but it’s undeniable.
Yet, it is wild, invisible and powerful. Hope grows at will, multiplying faster than a droplet is consumed in a wave as it whips across the water. It can swell into a tidal wave conquering all fear and washing away all chaos.
Hope is really very simple. It is a state of mind and heart we embrace and live in and become. It takes a bit of effort to acquire, though. Becoming full of this hope takes solid, logical thought and willingness to change our condition.
Bring hope into focus, make it become your priority:
• pray for understanding God’s will first
• then pray for guidance to act upon His will
• inform yourself responsibly
• take care of your family
• surrender all to His mighty care
Hope is a bare essential in the journey of life.
Be Brave and Begin!