Maybe things will be better next time.
It’s a thought I hear from people in various situations in life. The girl thinks that maybe the next relationship will turn out better. The man thinks that maybe the next job will turn out better. The child thinks that maybe the next birthday will turn out better. The teacher thinks that maybe the next academic year will turn out better. The player thinks that maybe the game will turn out better next time.
Those thoughts have been somewhat embedded. It is not so much an expectancy as a wish. It is not so much a driving motivation as something to keep them from drifting into hopelessness.
There is a difference between those thoughts and the hope that is a vital tool in the package required for life’s journey. There is something about this hope that is the drive for every new day. It is the tool in the kit which can deal with those disappointments. Not dismissing them as if they’re nothing, but putting them in the light of what is ahead. Seeing them as stepping stones to appreciate the great worth of what is ahead. To see again that what is expected is not going to come easy or without pain and sorrow. It acknowledges that what is to come may involve suffering and setbacks. Those, however, do not diminish that which is expected – that which is ahead.
This is why hope matters. It stimulates and sends the heart soaring. It gives the soul a song that the current circumstances are not the resting place. It stirs the mind to see what is yet to come even in what is.
Hope is so essential for the journey.
(Photo by Grant Ritchie on Unsplash)
For His Name’s Sake
Shalom
C. L. J. Dryden
Life With CD 