My Big Brother Finally Taught Me Something

At the end of a long day

when my life feels murky,

and I can't really see what's ahead

I sometimes slip, and embrace despair.

When I feel hopeless and helpless

and sometimes unloved or unwanted,

well there's a word that I try to imagine in my mind.

It's a tiny word, with so much meaning.

HOPE.

The wise Neal A Maxwell wrote,

"Significantly, those who look forward

 to a next and better world

 are usually “anxiously engaged”

 in improving this one,

 for they “always abound in good works". 

Thus, real hope is much more than wishful musing.

 It stiffens, not slackens, the spiritual spine. 

It is composed, 

not giddy,

 eager without being naive,

 and pleasantly steady without being smug.

 Hope is realistic anticipation taking the form of determination—a determination not merely to survive but to “endure … well” to the end." -Neil A Maxwell "Brightness of Hope"

There's a man 

that I know who is the epitome

of Hope. 

In fact, he wrote the following words and sent them to me.

They're filled with the "steady", "composed" hope

that Neil A. Maxwell described,

"In this the darkest hour of her life, 

when her hopes and dreams had burnt to the ground,

 a fiery Phoenix rose from the ashes. 

The phoenix was not hope

 but that is what others saw,

 it was not charity,

 but that is what other people saw, 

it was not joy but that's what others saw,

 she was not our savior 

but that is what other people saw."

I wept when I read this

because in our darkest hours,

we can still be hope to someone,

we can still be charity, we can still save 

and we can still have Joy.

The thing that we have to remember

is that we get to decide on these feelings.

So.

When I awake in the morning,

wishing I could skip ahead

to calmer water,

I say to myself,

I will.

"Embrace this day with an enthusiastic

welcome...no matter how it looks."

Because that. Is Hope.