January 20, 2002

Welcome to Wyndspirit Dreams! With all the changes going on in my life, I have been doing a lot of hoping this week. As I said in the very first Wyndspirit Dreams, there are some major changes going on in my life. At work I will soon be trained for a new account, with a completely different type of tech support. Then last week I interviewed for a job that I desperately hope to get. If I get the job, I hope I can make ends meet on a considerably smaller paycheck. If I don’t get the job, I hope that things will work out on my new account at my current job. And, no matter what happens, I hope that someday I will be in a better situation than I am in right now.

What is it about hope? I think it must be an inborn part of human nature. It’s almost impossible not to have at least a spark of hope buried somewhere deep within us. No matter how bad things get, we always have a hint of hope that things will get better. If we lose that hope, life is no longer worth living. But as long as there is that spark of hope, we can stand almost anything. Maybe things will get better… Sometimes they do, sometimes they don’t, but there is always the possibility, the hope.

What is hope? It’s a little tickle deep down inside you that won’t let you throw away your dreams, at least not permanently. You can quit, you can give up, but it never completely dies. You can be at the lowest point in your life and it’s still there, tucked away but glowing faintly in some hidden corner of your soul, waiting to spring to life again. It’s the little voice that says, things didn’t go so well this time, but just wait till next time…!

But what makes us hope, even when all common sense says things are hopeless? Could it be that we see hopes coming true all around us every day of our lives? The sun sets, but we know it will come up the next morning. The nastiest storms are followed by rainbows and blue skies. The worst winter is always eventually followed by spring. We step outside one raw, mucky February day, and hear a meadowlark singing on a fence. Call it a subliminal message from God, if you will. Spring will come. Things will get better. How could we not have hope?