Here's Hopin'!

But I will hope continually and will praise you yet more and more.

Psalm 71:14 (ESV)

Hope is an act of courage, a willingness to dream something better than our current circumstances without a guarantee that our vision will eventually become circumstance.  I have hoped for many things in my life.  Some of those hopes have been fulfilled, some have been refined and rejected, and others still linger no matter how hard I try to push them aside.  If you talk to me for any length of time, you will know what my hopes are.  They find their way into conversations, sometimes spoken gently and wistfully, sometimes spoken in confusion and bitterness...and sometimes not spoken aloud but reflected in my silence.  It is a dangerous thing to hope.  It makes us vulnerable to disappointment and even shame.  But it is more dangerous to live without hope, to be resigned to what is, to refuse the thought of what could be.  That is why I have decided to hope in God's greater plan, to dare to imagine that his calling on my life is more adventurous and fulfilling than anything I could create on my own.  So here's hoping in the adventure that starts today...and in all the fun and funny things along the way!