Hope is a thing with wings

I keep looking at a picture on my phone this week.  All week, I keep turning back to it.  I took it months ago.

It’s a picture of a little girl, born in Congo, now American.  I went to her home months ago to talk to her mother.  When she saw my camera, she asked me to take her picture, and then she took mine.  She was so happy and so hopeful.

This week, I feel like I can understand why other people give up, and sometimes I think maybe I should be like other people.  It might be easier and I think it might make things a lot less painful.

I sat on my bed today, looking at this little Love again, trying my darndest to just give up, but it’s just not something I can do.  Hope lives in us and we have to let it.  We have to keep moving, however slowly, however small, and keep hoping.

My daughter left a quote on my bed tonight next to her latest Bob Ross creation:

“We put some dark in, only so our light will show.  You have to have dark in order to show light.”

-Bob Ross

That flame of hope can stay alive with the smallest flame, and the smallest flame can cancel out the darkest dark.

So keep hoping.