Hope- what is it?

Today I had one of those days where I felt on top of the world. My life is great!!!

Happy children, wonderful hubby, summer, Christmas. I think this is my favourite time of year.

As I strolled around the shops trying to put a dent in the Christmas shopping and cover the upcoming birthdays too (we still have kid's birthdays- two in December and one in January). I realised how happy I am.

This morning I pulled a Grace card and I got Mirror. At lunch time, I stood in the health food shop and listened to the shop assistant's story of her last child's birth and her three month stay in hospital. I shared snippets of my story but let her tell hers.

'We had no help, it was just me and my husband,'she told me,'We just made our way through it.He had to deal with the other three kids while I was away.'

'I told the doctors,' she said,'After all this I am not going to be asleep and I made them give me an epidural so I could see my baby be born.'

Seventeen years ago she was one of the first to have an epidural Cesarean.

As I walked away I realised the word hope had not been mentioned. The lady in the shop had got on with it and believed it would be alright in the end. The words hope and baby don't seem to go together.

It struck me the similarity in our stories and the word mirror came back to me. It reminded me of our last house where I had a sticker which read "Choose Hope" stuck on the mirror of the bedroom. Frank and I had many a chat about the sticker and what it meant. We came to the conclusion that faith or belief would be a better word as hope sounded like it lacked confidence.

It is belief, faith, possibly even a knowing that keeps you going. Hoping isn't going to get you there when it is real strength you are looking for.

So what is hope? Does hope contain a lack of belief?

I know when I was told by someone that they believed everything was going to turn out fine, I believed them. I felt strengthen by the words.

Whenever someone said they hoped everything would be okay, I was always left wondering if it would be.

Hope.
I am so glad I didn't choose it last year.

Believe and have faith.

Cathryn