I have just met, by chance, a friend of mine who I have not seen since before Christmas. When I saw her then she was full of confidence, losing weight, happy and very optimistic that everything in her life was going well. She had a lightness about her and an aura that all was well in her world and that she knew where she was going. However, today when I met her things had changed. She was full of despair, crying, life was no longer the joyful place it once was and she felt that there was nothing to look forward to anymore.
As I left my friend after listening to her story I was hit by the difference in her outlook in just a few months. What had happened in that short time to change her from being an optimistic, happy, outgoing person who woke up every morning positive and eager to start the day afresh to this sad, empty, woman to whom each day now was a chore with nothing to look forward to. It struck me that she had lost her sense of HOPE.
The author, Robert Louis Stevenson one said “it is better to travel hopefully than to arrive” and I believe that is a message we can all learn from. The perfect analogy for life is that it is one long journey and like every journey we must take regular stops to refuel and check we are going in the right direction. All of us have our hopes and dreams; hope is the spark plug that drives us to achieve our dreams. It is essential that every now and then we stop and check that we are still on the right road and going at the right speed.
Life has a tendency to throw up obstacles, hurdles that get in our way and it is how we deal with them that matters. These blockages can make us take a wrong turn into a dead end road and before we have had a chance to correct we start to feel fear and despair which can soon take over our lives. Instead of hope we feel heavy and lacklustre and this can go on for months or years as we struggle to right ourselves; find the light at the end of the tunnel. But once at rock bottom, then, we can start to find that tiny spark of hope.
It is an amazing power hope. It can take fear and shatter it, take despair and smash it to little pieces. It can find its way into all those dark and fearsome corners and shine its bright and loving light. When we feel at our lowest, dullest, so out of energy, that is the perfect time to take a bundle of hope and re-charge. Just the knowledge that hope is there and on your team is enough to begin the process. Once we stop and allow hope to re-enter our life we can start to redirect our route and get back on the right road again.
Hope has an amazing powerpower. It can shatter fear and despair into ash and dust. In this article Rod NicholsonRod Nicholson examines how hope can be lost and then found.
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