Inspired.

So on this journey to blog every day, I realized I needed some kind of direction, or else it really would just be randomly putting words on the screen and confirming in everyone’s mind that i have lost mine. Which, i mean, maybe I have. But I’d like to at least keep the illusion going here on my blogspace as long as possible!

and then I stumbled across a list of prompts from an Instagram friend, and I loved her list, so I thought, ok good, i can do this. It can fit with the flow of what I already write about, and if there’s a day that I am stuck or need a jumping off point, I can use this list! So that’s what I did today. The prompt is to write about our Favorite Inspiring Quote. If you know me at all – you can probably guess this one from a mile away~

From the classic movie “Shawshank Redemption” and based on the short story by Stephen King. It is so much more than just a quote to me – it is how i try to live my life. Like the characters in the movie, when life seems hopeless, there is always something to find Hope in. It comes in the unexpected, the small and quiet, the unbelievable. But it is always there.
this year, perhaps more than any other in my life, I have had to learn what a good thing hope really is. i have had to learn how closely hope and faith are intertwined. I have had moments where those two things were literally all that was left in me – hope, and faith. And neither were in very large supply.
Sitting in that hospital hallway, hearing the alarms sounding the bad news bad news bad news of my daughter’s respiratory status, feeling that crushing weight against my chest that my baby may not survive the next few hours, the next few minutes, feeling myself being sucked into the darkest vortex I have ever felt in my life – there was very little hope. But I had a little bit. I had hope that her fighting warrior spirit would serve her well in yet another battle. I had hope that the doctors in that room were doing every possible thing they could to keep her little heart beating, to keep her body and her spirit alive. I had hope that the God who has always held us in His hands would hold us still, and that He would work all things together for good. I had to hope. I did not have much, but I had some. Hope. And faith.

But that’s the good thing about them both – they multiply. Oh how they grow if you give them room. It is not easy to have hope in the face of scary circumstances.

in the movie, the hope theme is cycled throughout the movie. there is one scene in which Red tells Andy (the main character) “Hope is a dangerous thing – it’s got no room in a place like this.” Hope can be dangerous – it can lift you up to a place you may fall from and that fall may hurt and feel like it is killing you. But you must choose to hope anyways.

Because as Andy turns it around on Red at the end of the movie – “Hope is a good thing – maybe the best of things – and no good thing ever dies.” The very last lines of the movie leave us hearing Red’s thoughts on what he now hopes for, now that he has caught on to the goodness of hope – he hopes the pacific is as blue as it has been in his dreams, he hopes he finds his friend, he hopes, he hopes…
Do you? Do you have hope that every day holds something good? Do you have hope that bad situations will turn around? Do you have faith that the Author of Hope is holding you in His hands and wants to work goodness in your life? It is not easy. Believing like that, living like that – it’s a dangerous thing in this world.  But it does not mean it’s not worth it.

Hope.
when the doctors send you home to enjoy every second with your child because her days may be very numbered, you hope they are wrong.

when the medical bills pile up and there is not enough paycheck to go around, you hope that it works out somehow.

when the darkness of whatever you are facing threatens to swallow you – hope anyways.

Hope against all the odds.

Hope in spite of your circumstances.

Hope anyways.

Hope. Hope. Hope…

terra