I Will Return to Hope

I describe myself as hopeful.  More often than not, I find myself feeling literally full of hope.  It has not always been this way.  In the past I was hopeless more often than hopeful.  I’ve had my battles with deep depression, I’ve entertained the voices telling me to give up and end it all.  Those voices were silenced years ago, but I still remember the trails that got me into that deep darkness.  While it may be easier now than ever to stay away from despair, the truth is that even on my best days there are places in my life where it is a challenge to be full of hope.  There are places where I am tempted to surrender to hopelessness.  Other areas of life I describe more as being weary in hope; like my hope is worn out, old and tired. 

In the past I found this disparity disconcerting; feeling hopeful in some area of my life, yet completely lacking hope in other areas.  But recently, for the past year or so I have adopted a new perspective.  The reality is that even in the darkest times of my life, when I’ve faced the greatest sorrow or biggest impossibility, I have always found my way back to hope.  Hopelessness has never been permanent, even when it felt like it was forever.  I have always found myself beginning to hope again and then that faint small glimmer of hopefulness would slowly but steadily increase.

The analogy that best describes the process in my mind is of creating a trail in the forest.  The first time you walk on a path through the woods you are creating a trail.  It is not easy and you are creating the pathway as you go.  If you try to follow the same path the next time, it seems just as difficult as you take each step, and yet there is a difference.  This time you have a confidence and growing excitement because you have been this way before.  You know where you are going and what the destination is like.  After several times of hiking on the same trail, a path begins to form.  The forest floor becomes compacted and hardened in the path you are creating. You begin to have to push less bushes aside as you pass by.  There is greater confidence and boldness in your steps.  After many times on the path, you notice that out in front of you is a path you can see, it is clear and you no longer doubt that you are staying on the path.

I have allowed myself this kind of confidence and boldness.  I have faced hopelessness before and found my way back to hope.  I am no longer threatened or afraid of being hopeless or feeling that my hope is weary or tired.  I believe I will return to hope.  I have been on the path before…. I know that I will make it and that the journey doesn’t last forever.  I have chosen to define myself more by where I am headed than the place where I may begin. 

I am a person of hope.  I may get weary and struggle at times, but I am one who returns to a place of hope.  I have survived seasons of deep darkness, where hopelessness was thick and stifling.  I have determined to keep walking toward hope, when logic screams at me to give up.  I have worn a trail through the forest of uncertainty to find myself awash in hope once again.  I refuse to fear being hopeless.  I just keep going.  I keep my eyes on hope and just walk, as I’ve done so many times before, towards it.  I may be weak and tired, but I am returning to hope.