Hope: sometimes it's all we have, but that's OK, we are human you know.

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I just want to cry right now. I want to bury my head in the sand and not come out until things are better and I am where I am supposed to be, doing what it is that I am supposed to be doing.  I want the madness to stop and I just want to feel like I have some value to this world.  If you are like me, then you have said these very words at some point in the past.  I know all too well the sound of these words for I have said them, and I will admit that I have said them not long ago.

There are days when hope is all we have to lean on.  There is an old Scottish Proverb that says that were it not for hope the heart would break.  It is those times when you have been knocked down in life, time and time again, that we need to remember that hope springs eternal.  I wish I could tell you how many times I have clung to hope, if for no other reason then the alternative would be to end it all and just die.  Face it, life sucks sometimes, and even though most of what we go through is a learning experience, some of these experiences are ones that we never want to go through again.  Hope says let me live to fight another day.  Hope says there is something out there for me.  Hope says that no matter what I am going through I will be the person I was intended to be.

Erik Erikson said this, "Hope is both the earliest and the most indispensable virtue inherent in the state of being alive.  If life is to be sustained hope must remain, even where confidence is wounded, trust impaired."  We each have a hope for a better tomorrow, and even though our trust may have been tested, our confidence shattered, or our faith massively tested, we hold on to the only thing that hopefully will never be shaken, our hope.  There are so many people who have given up hope.  They have attempted to achieve greatness only to be thwarted with each and every attempt.  The storms of life have come and washed away any thought of success or fulfillment.  I know how devastating this can be, but I also know that I can never give up hope. No matter what life has thrown at you, you must hold on to hope.

Charles Sawyer made a statement once and it is so freeing that I just needed to share it with you.  He said, "Of all the forces that make for a better world, none is so indispensable, none so powerful, as hope.  Without hope men are only half alive. With hope they dream and think and work."  Hope is what will allow you to fall asleep at night with thoughts of success and fulfillment thus allowing you to tackle the next day with a new focus.  Were it not for hope I can assure you that I would not be in the place I am right now and I certainly would not be doing what I am doing.  I have faith, but I will tell you that my faith has been tested and were it not for hope I would have thrown in the towel long ago.  I have experienced more set backs then I would like to admit, but I also never lost hope. I never gave up on my dreams, I never walked away from my destiny.  I knew I was never alone because I am a divine creation and my destiny is why I was put here.

During these last seven or eight years I have experienced the highs and lows of life.  I have battled and at times have wished it could all be over and I could find peace and rest.  Had it not been for the hope I had I would have given up and that would have been the greatest mistake I could have ever made, and trust me I have made my share of mistakes.  I need you to hold on to the hope that I know is inside of you and know that tomorrow brings new opportunity.  I believe in destiny and I believe that you have a destiny, and if you have not discovered it yet and began to walk in it, soon you will do just that.

I want to leave you with this last and final quote.  I know I have used many today, but why re-invent the wheel when someone else has said it better than I could.  This final quote comes from Gilbert Chesterton, the famed English Writer, often referred to as the "Prince of Paradox".  G.K. Chesterton said this, "To love means loving the unlovable. To forgive means pardoning the unpardonable. Faith means believing the unbelievable. Hope means hoping when everything seems hopeless."  You may be facing a hopeless situation, but it is in this time that hope must spring up from somewhere in you.  You cannot fall prey to others who have given up hope.  When one loses hope they have pretty much lost everything.  When one clings to hope, no matter how tattered it may be, or how hard times have gotten, then there is an expectancy that things will improve and the joy and peace that has been missing will finally come home to roost.

Hope may be all that you have left, but having just a little hope is better then nothing at all.  Hope will turn to faith, faith will turn to trust, and trust will turn into the discovery of your destiny.  When you begin walking in your destiny you will be able to share the story of hope with others and you will help others achieve their own destiny.  Hope is the promise of tomorrow and tomorrow is yet another opportunity to share your story of destiny in the hopes that others will discover theirs.  Hope is your foundation and it is a solid foundation that cannot be shaken apart.