True Hope

When it rains, it pours.

I have a lot to be grateful for, but the past couple years have had their fair share of personal challenges for me. Things not coming together, things falling apart, dreams deflated, bouts of sickness, loss, and failure. It feels like it’s been “pouring” on me.

I don’t want to focus on the pouring rain. I want to focus on the sunny days. I know that I “should” focus on the clear skies - the abundance of good things in my life. I know I “should” dance in the rain. I know that I “should” remember that rain makes rainbows, and rain makes flowers grow, etc, etc. And yet, here I am, feeling a bit sorry for myself and questioning the very nature of “hope”.

Is hope sunny skies everyday? Is hope successful and healthy? Do hope’s dreams come true, and do only good things happen to hope? Is hope a constant, bright, cheery optimist, skipping through grassy meadows?

If this is hope, I have given up on it. I quit hoping. It’s too vulnerable to hope. It’s too painful when the hopes crash to the ground. This hope is a fairytale and doesn’t exist. So goodbye, hope, I’m done with you. I’ve out grown you.

It’s time to give up this Disney version of hope. It’s time for a more mature version of hope.

Hope doesn’t live in a sunny, perfect world, does it?

If hope lived in a perfect world, hope wouldn’t exist. There would be no purpose for it.

Hope does not exist only in the absence of bad things. Hope is not the absence of doubt and despair.

No, that is the only place where true, mature hope lives. Hope lives in a tough neighbourhood of bad things. Hope stands shoulder to shoulder with doubt and despair. Hope is less of a sunny sky and more a flickering candle on a dark, windy night.

Hope stands in the rain, wobbly, dirty, battered, and soaking wet, but never giving up.

That’s true hope.

Here’s to conquering stress.

With heart,

Elaine

The Stress Experts