Today,
I can tell you, Spring has come.
I know, don’t get your “hopes” up!
We joke about it, mostly because we are silly and a little frustrated with the weather.
But really, we do know without doubt that Winter will end and Spring will arrive, sometime before July. Snow is not bad. In January and even February.
March is borderline and April…
Even the rain, leaving puddles around to walk in and seep through leather if we aren’t careful, is a welcome sign.
A downpour of rain, freeing roads and sidewalks of snow and salt and sand, is cleansing, refreshing.
All of this reminded me today of
HOPE.
We use the word flippantly but recent study has revealed that HOPE is so much more than, wishing, dreaming, if only(ing).
It is that, at times. But, with that kind of hope, there is no guarantee. Sometimes hoping is futile and even hopeLESS.

I delved into the world of Greek the other day. No scholar here, but with google at my fingertips it is easy to learn and discover truth, that is old, but new to me.
“Why not dig a bit?” I asked myself.
“No need to wait for someone to open the windows of learning”, I suggested to me.
“There is so much I don’t know but should”, my heart told my brain.
So I looked for myself.
I tell you, a whole new world is appearing as I read and write and learn and walk and leave the t.v. screen dark.
evenings of quiet and learning and even
dare I say, seeking,
more.
Not stuff, but richness.
Perhaps it’s because I have a birthday not far off
maybe the crisis of mid life
Not certain but I recognize life as being too short to waste. Let me learn and share and really live.

Back to HOPE
This is all about hope because life is short and sometimes not terribly sweet but real and worth living and I know it isn’t just, about now. Right here.
Doing these things and waiting and wondering.
HOPE, I learned from my Greek study, is an EXPECTATION. Expecting the reality of what is actual. This HOPE is about living while I wait and waiting while I live.
Life is a gift, but it isn’t for me alone. It is for sharing and encouraging and helping
other people
HOPE is the reality of KNOWING without doubt that there is purpose, to my life (and yours).
It is about realizing that when I say I HOPE for the day when I am perfect and whole and stand before God and look around at my forever home, that is not a wishing, dreaming, wondering kind of thing. It is truth. Reality. EXPECTATION!

The one thing that defines HOPE for me, is knowing. That I have HOPE.

Kind of blows my mind a bit.