hope.

Hope. Something I could always use more of. Something that isn't always so readily seen. Something that can so effortlessly get lost between the roaring { sometimes drowning } waves of life.

Hope, I'm learning, isn't just a word that may about bring happy feelings. Hope is what we must hold on to in order to fully live. Because if we live the way we should, the way we were created to { if we let ourselves fully feel and fully experience all that life brings our way } we must hold onto hope. We must seek, grasp, pursue this thing that perches on our souls.

Without it all is - quite literally - lost.

Because while hope is easily found in times of joy and bliss, it is just as easily lost in times of hurt and disappointment. Those times when we need it the most, hope suddenly seemingly cannot be found - and all feels dark and dreary and hopeless.

So this hope - I want to learn to seek it. Especially in this season - when behind all the frills and flash, hearts are still breaking and tears are still coming and hope is still needed. Lights and trees and sweets may bring me a counterfeit kind of hope. But when they fade away on the first of January, I need something real I can hold on it.

We need this real kind of Hope that never lets us go. This soul reviving kind of Hope.

Hope is what wraps around and peels back the numbness. Hope is what picks us up when we can't get off the floor. Hope is what spreads smiles and laughter. Hope is what strengthens the ever fainting heart. Hope is what allows us to see in seasons of darkness. Hope is what warms the cold, frail soul. Hope is what shines the way when we don't know where else to go. Hope is what gives true life.

Hope is the thing with feathers

That perches on 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