Hope

                "What if the defining moments of our lives are the ones that we embrace the pain, the sorrow, the anger, or the disappointment? Not so that it controls us, but so that it can chisel us into a masterpiece. For there is a beauty inside of those things; a richness that comes from experiencing all of life. Yes, our joy deepens after we have drank deeply from the spring of loss. We stand, choosing to love, even though we understand  how broken our hearts can be when we chose to return love for hate. 

To experience pain is to be alive; for pain is as universal as love, and love is something any living heart can feel."

             My thumbs ran across the keyboard of my iPhone as I walked and jotted that memo months ago. Something keeps drawing me back to it. It's been quite the journey since then. One that has had it's mountaintops and it's valleys. Yet, in those valleys--in those places that I'm so tempted to give into the despair of the moment, and accept defeat and discouragement as the only way out--I remember that even the hard times have a purpose. 

           Maybe I don't see the end right now. Maybe the light at the end of the tunnel seems to have been switched off. Maybe I hurt, and ache, and wonder. But you know what? That's okay.  Because, in these place of intense "yuckiness" (and yes, I made that officially a word ;) ), I've come to realize that my character is being made deeper, stronger, more lovely, more sure, and more desperate for the truest source of Life. 

           These things will pass. Some will leave me with scars, while others will be quickly fleeting. But I hope that I will allow them to help develop my character, my perseverance, and my hope. Because life, all of life, really is worth living.

"... we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame..." (Romans 5:3-5)