Hope

Hope has been one of my most favorite words for a long time. I can't remember why it spoke to me so strongly in the beginning, but it continues to warm my soul...that is if I let it.

With depression comes hoplessness. A feeling that the despair, darkness, anxiety, etc. are here to stay. I can honestly say that I have had my fair share of hoplessness over the past five months. Why just this morning I woke up overcome with a feeling that this will never end. That just getting out of bed every morning will be taxing or even having the fear that the next morning I won't. It has happened.

As many of you know I am an avid reader or at least was. One of the first concerns I brought up to my therapist was the fact that I was having a hard time reading and had only read two books this year. Two! She thought that was wonderful until I went on to tell her that I had read 78 books last year. There is a huge gap between two and 78.

I can officially pronounce that I finished reading a book today! It is a book I have read before and it is one of my favorite newbery honor books. It is called "Hope Was Here". It is about a 16 year old girl who legally has her name changed from Tulip to Hope when she was twelve. She lives with her aunt and they move around quite frequently. At each place she leaves she writes somewhere Hope Was Here.

"I took out my blue pen and wrote Hope Was Here in tiny letters on one of the boards. Hope is my name. Whenever I leave a place I write this real small someplace significant just to make the statement that I'd been there and made an impact."

Now Hope doesn't live an easy life. She has moved around quite often and has only met with her mother three times. She has made friends and has had to leave them behind. By the time she was fourteen she had been to six different schools and lived in five states. She knew life was never meant to be easy and yet she hoped to live up to her name. To provide hope for others. To make an impact wherever she went.

As I read this book this time around I am seeing it through new eyes. Finding myself relating to it more than I ever have before. Life never was meant to be easy. But that is no reason to give up hope. Hope that my depression and anxiety won't last forever. Hope that I will be able to meet and overcome the other trials that I will find in my path. Hope that as doors close that new ones will open. Hope that things that used to bring me joy will once again excite me. Hope that even in the moments that may feel hopeless that there are others helping me to hold on for just one more day, or one more hour, or one more minute. Hope for the future. Hope that my trials will one day be helpful to someone else. Hope that my life will make an impact.

For what would our world be like if we didn't have hope?