“Hope is a weak word,” I’ve heard. And, I get it, I guess. If all you do is hope that something will happen or hope things will change or get better, but you don’t do anything other than sit around hoping, then sure… it’s not enough. At the same time, I have also always cringed a little bit at this idea. Something about it felt off.
I’ve found that sometimes hope is all we have. When things feel so lost and we can’t see the way out, we must hold on to hope. Hope is like faith or love in that it can’t be seen, but it can be felt deep, deep down inside us. It can call us forward. It can help us show up for another day.
“Hope sees the invisible, feels the intangible, and achieves the impossible.” – Helen Keller
I’ve found that hope is not weak at all, but perhaps one of the strongest forces that exists. It is a light in the darkness, a beacon in confusion, a balm in times of despair. Hope lives in the rising of the sun, the blooming of the daffodil, and the budding of the trees.
“In the stillness of the quiet, if we listen, we can hear the whisper of the heart giving strength to weakness, courage to fear, hope to despair.” – Howard Thurman
Although at times hope feels risky, so we opt for “cautious optimism” instead, as if somehow daring to hope will jinx the outcome we hope for or cast a curse upon the situation. The stakes are so high we dare not hope. And yet, please do… what have you got to lose? Not hoping isn’t going to make the pain any less if things don’t work out. And it might just lighten your spirit along the way.
Because I think we could all use a little more hope, I offer you this beautiful poem:
Listen
Fear says
‘what if this
is the end of the world?’
Love asks
with a tender and open smile
‘Oh my precious child,
what if this is the beginning.’
Don’t lose hope
Don’t let fear harden you
Lean in to the unimaginable.
Dare to laugh
amidst disaster
even with shattered dreams
and a broken heart
that cries for all those suffering.
Dare to love
even now
even here.
Remember who you are,
without all the layers
of conditioning.
Come home
Again
And
Again.
Bathe in the beauty
All around.
Remember, dear child
The sky and earth
Still
Sing.
It is up to us
To
listen.
- Sarah Siegel
Share with us please your thoughts on hope. What’s been possible because you dared to hold onto hope? How has hope supported you? Is hope a scary or easy feeling for you to lean into?
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