Written In My Heart

A few years ago I did a breast cancer picture and titled it HOPE.  On the picture I put a quote from Norma Vincent:

What is hope? Hope is wishing for a thing to come true: faith is believing that it will come true. Hope is wanting something so eagerly that – in spite of all the evidence that you're not going to get it – you go right on wanting it. And the remarkable thing about it is that this very act of hoping produces a kind of strength of its own. 

I don't have faith in many things. Is that jaded? I don't know. I've found in MY life that just sitting and believing that something will come true doesn't seem to do me a lick of good. I'm sort of the "go out and get it" kind of gal. So I hope for things and then I go out and get those things. It wasn't until I read this quote that HOPE made so much more sense to me. The final sentence that states "the very act of hoping produces a kind of strength of its own" is what nailed it for me. 

I think we all hope for "a better tomorrow".  I think that hope is what gives us the strength to go out and create our tomorrows. I have had a couple of weeks filled with dread and worry and fear. I have let my strength ebb and hopelessness has filled up the empty spaces in my heart.

The other day a friend of mine shared:

Whether we like it or not, hope is written so deeply into our hearts that we just can't help ourselves, no matter how hard we try otherwise.

This simple statement has helped me "draw up my bootstraps" and get the fight back in me that I need in order to end the fear induced paralysis within me. I don't just hope for change anymore. I have gathered my strength to cause change. It's in ME to do it. Therefore, it WILL BE DONE.