As I was sharing with a friend a page from my book, “A Love so Great, A Grief so Deep,” I thought about all the times in life when we get overwhelmed and lose hope.
When I wrote these words my husband was dying – yet there had been earlier signs for recovery. Here is what I wrote about hope.
Hope is the effort to fly with wings not yet grown. If I don’t hope – don’t try – don’t struggle, there will never be the possibility of flying.
I cannot live without hope. If I get bruised and bloodied because of it, so be it. But to live without hope is worse than struggling – flapping wings that don’t take you anywhere. Just like pushing against a stone, whther it moves or not, you become strong. By flapping our wings they atach themselves securely and begin to carry us. I want to soar like the eagles. I always have. I just never knew it required such a workout to accomplish it.
Hope! It is a gift I cannot refuse. Belief. It is the assumption that God catches you when reality doesn’t match your hopes and you begin to fall.
You may not be aware of being caught and held safely because the terror of falling is too great. But God is there regardless of how you feel, like the parachute keeping a skydiver from plummeting to earth. A skydiver has learned to turn his fear of falling into a heady joy of floating. When reality has dashed my hope, how do I turn my fear of falling into floating?
In order to fly, you have to exerise your wings. In order to fly you have to be willing to fall and “let go” of your fear of heights, let go and free fall – spreading your arms so you can catch the updrafts and float. In order to fly, you must have hope.
Hope can energize. It seeks new solutions as you learn from crashes what to do and what not to do.
Fear grounds you – makes you miserable, resentful, blaming. Fear eats you up and spits you out in the garbage dump! Hope reaches upward. Fear drives you down into the ground. Hope is the wings that will enable me to fly.
Marlene Anderson
My book, A Love so Great, a Grief so Deep, is available through my website and on Amazon. com.