Welcome Back! I return to you with an urgent message: Still, Hope!

Still, hope is a private mantra that has been sustaining me through these shaky times with wars springing everywhere, life-taking floods, fires, hurricanes, cancer diagnoses, grave losses, impossible grief, and the humbling uncertainty and fragility of my existence. The words came to me after hearing the devastating news from Camp Mystic. I wanted to finally throw my hands up. Instead, I scribbled the words, “Still, hope” on a sticky note and taped it to the bathroom mirror so it was the first and last thing I saw every day!

Faced with the unpredictable, the unfair, the fragile, the break-your-heart, why should I (you) still hope? I started making my still, hope list. 

Still, Hope because it is an act of resistance to the darkness and evil present in the world. Still, Hope because the alternative is much scarier. Still, Hope because it is the only way to see my way through trials and tribulations, experience healing and be surprised by joy. Still, Hope because my nine-year old is watching me. Still, Hope because just maybe a breakthrough, even a miracle is waiting around the next bend. Still, Hope because if not, my life is tight, small, suffocating. Fear rules my days. Still, Hope because my soul cannot survive on earth without it. Still, Hope because time is short and I can never get it back. Still, Hope because God has made a way in the past and promises to do it again. Still, Hope because God needs me. If not me (or you) then who will carry the banner of hope?

Often the most powerful testimonies for the existence of, and the life-saving power of hope are from those who have endured the greatest darkness and refused to give up. Victor Frankl avowed, “Man does not simply exist, but always decides what his existence will be, what he will become in the next moment.” All we really have any control of in this unpredictable world is the private landscape of hope within us, and how we choose to approach each day. Heroes are forged because they persist against great odds, locating hope in the bleak. They courageously embrace the life unfolding before them as best as they can. They never give up on God.

Over this next year, my writing will focus on hope: What is it? Can it be trusted? Where can we locate it and help others to do the same? Join me in my determination to Still, Hope!