Choose Hope

Dear Friends,

As I scroll through Facebook each day, I find messages of fear and dread. Some people are fearing illness or personal hardships. Others are fearing governmental powers. Still others are fearing everyday battles at work, school, or home. I don’t know the exact fears of every person, but I do know the source of fear; The Devil wants us to be afraid. He wants us to live in fear rather than hope. He wants to destroy our hope each day in every thing.

I, too, have had my own fights with fear. Most recently, I have had various health problems, one on top of another on top of another…all working to damage my hope in daily life. When your body doesn’t feel good, it’s easy to become anxious about every little thing.

I decided to start this blog to encourage my friends and family as well as people I may never know. I will be posting daily on this blog with reflections of hope. Whether you stick with me every day, read once in a while, or binge read every weekend to catch up, I pray that my reflections will bring hope and peace to all. If you have any encouraging messages that may help guide my posts, feel free to contact me at sjconrad88@gmail.com.

Here is today’s reflection:

November 23: “Choose Hope”

What is hope? Is it a thing that you hold? Is it something you think or say? How does hope form and take shape? Does hope happen differently for one person or another?

Hope might have very different definitions for very different people, but I’d like to offer the idea of hope as a mindset. Hope can be something that frames your thoughts, actions, and words. It can be a choice to live in the possibility and peace rather than the fear and unknown.

Choosing hope within possibility is an encouraging way to live. Instead of asking yourself what could go wrong, it’s the mindset of believing that good can happen. Even more, it’s believing that even if problems come, good can and will come from those problems, even if you don’t notice the good right away.

This is where the peace part comes in. Choosing hope requires a mindset of peace. It’s this thing that fills you with stillness to handle the what ifs of life. It’s this thing that calms you, even if you think of both the good and bad possibilities. It’s the thing that will sustain you if the ifs happen and will hold you through the storm. It’s also the thing that gives you quietness in the wait and sees of life.

As we go on this journey of choosing hope, I ask you to try with me. Let’s try to choose hope together. Let’s try to trust in the good possibilities. Let’s try to have peace that good will come from the future, even if we cannot see it immediately. Let’s look at the world in hope rather than fear. Maybe then, we can change from a culture of fear to a culture of hope. Maybe then, we can encourage our friends and family. Maybe then, we can brighten up our social media posts and in turn impact others for the better.

Thanks for stepping out in hope with me. Let’s choose hope, even if just for today.

Sara