It is said that tribulation produces perseverance and that builds character. And if you have built character then you’ll have hope. I’m not sure how that all works to bring hope though. I get that trouble in life, at least for many people, causes you to persevere. I also agree that when you learn to persevere, it plays into who you are. So, is it that once you’ve learned to persevere you have hope that through the experience everything will work out once you push past the hard parts?

It’s the pushing past or sweating through those hard parts that I don’t necessarily appreciate. Sometimes, I just want it to be easy. I want to wake up and know exactly where I’m headed and the best path to take to get there. I want to know that even though the path may twist and turn a bit, head up hill for a ways, or turn into a little worn game trail, that I’ll get there and be able to celebrate victory. But this rarely happens, at least for me.

I struggle with sore muscles, lugging an overpacked knapsack, feel the blisters on my heels and wishing for the bench by the gurgling stream to be just around the next corner-where I might sit and rest a bit, breathing in the sounds of the water, the air, the Earth alive around me. This is why I love to ride and hike and take tractor drives-breathing space.

Yes, I continue to hope and I don’t think it is a flaw. Hope keeps me going. Hope brings my hands together in prayer. Hope makes me continue to write. Hope is aspiration, wish, desire, ambition, goal, plan, design, trust, anticipation, want, belief, faith, and hope can change everything.