hope

I was thinking about hope; yes hope- and the importance of it in our lives.  I was reading about a lovely woman who said that through her loss of her baby girl it was the hope of others that gave her the ability to walk forward.  As I am reflecting on this I too am able to apply this to my own life and say a resounding "yes" to her declaration.  I am thinking of brave people in my own life who feel overwrought with present circumstances, wondering how they will be able to go on.  When the days are long, the offense great, the loss tremendous I really do believe that it is by hope that we can put one foot in front of another.  Hope that another has in you will ignite a beautiful and powerful ingredient in one's own heart: faith.  One day at a time; that's it.  Nothing more.  Can you love that unlovely child?  Can you forgive yet one more time?  Can we love one another knowing that it is a risk- a huge risk with everything to lose?  I long to be that bit of hope in another persons life when maybe breathing is all that can be accomplished.  I can reflect on the faces and words of hope spoken into my life even when I couldn't truly digest it; it was still longed for in my heart.  To know that people stand in the gap, praying with fervency and tenderness.... what an amazing, humbling gift.  As loss is constant and  pain inevitable, hope can be a beacon in another persons life offering a life support to a dieing victim sinking under the absence of hope. 
I am writing this from the vantage of admiration at so many lovely and amazing women in the midst of my life; brave women.  Women going forward when they feel "done", exhausted with the challenges that were not foreseen from decisions past.
Isaiah 40: 29,31
" He gives power to the faint,
and to him who has no might he increases strength.
....but they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength;
they shall mount up with wings like eagles;
they shall run and not be weary;
for they shall walk and not faint."