Hope.

Hope is something I have always had a hard time with. What is hope? Just hoping that life will get better? A desire for a certain outcome? Trust? Expectation?

I was listening to a song while I was making dinner the other night. I had a flood of feelings. I began thinking about a book I recently started reading called Untamed. In the book, the author asks the reader how they imagine their most beautiful true life. I took a half a hour and wrote down what my most beautiful true life looked like.

My most beautiful true life involves being a mentally healthy mom for my kids, travel more, and continuing to serve others in my current position. I'm not sure if I'm having a midlife crisis or a mental breakthrough, but as I began to envision what my life could look like in the most beautiful way.

As the lyrics of the song started penetrating my soul, I began to not only desire and dream about my most beautiful life, but I felt this overwhelming feeling of good. I began to feel that hope is more about the possibility of better. The chance at something even though it may not happen. Vulnerability in the chance that life can be better if we make the change to reach for our dreams.

If you have taken any suicide prevention class or had any education around suicide prevention, the one thing that is the most effective in helping someone struggling is by giving them hope. Letting go of the struggles that one is currently struggling with and being vulnerable to the chance of things getting better.

I do believe a poem I was required to memorize for my high school English class says it best:

“Hope” is the thing with feathers -

That perches in the soul -

And sings the tune without the words -

And never stops - at all -

And sweetest - in the Gale - is heard -

And sore must be the storm -

That could abash the little Bird

That kept so many warm -

I’ve heard it in the chillest land -

And on the strangest Sea -

Yet - never - in Extremity,

It asked a crumb - of me.

-Emily Dickinson