And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.
What is Hope? Again, inspired by “Keeping a Princess Heart”, I’ve learned a bit about Hope.
Seems to be a simple concept, right? We HOPE we make it till next payday. We HOPE we get to do something fun this week. We HOPE we get a good nights sleep. We HOPE that we don’t get sick.
Hope is much, much more than that. Hope is POWERFUL!
The book uses an example of a story (a kind of horrid story, but poignant nonetheless).
A scientist puts 3 rats in a tub of water to see how long they could swim before they drowned. The rats treaded water for about 4 hours and two of them drowned. Before the third one went down, the scientist pulled him out, dried him off and gave him a few days to rest up. A week later he conducted the same experiment using the same rat and two new ones. Around the 4 hour mark, the two new ones succumbed to fatique and drowned, but the other one kept swimming. And swimming. And swimming. He swam for 2 days! Hope is a powerful thing.
No, the story isn’t pleasant, but the meaning behind it is. Deep in the depths of all of our Princess hearts, there lies HOPE. Even those who are cynical (Gene, are you reading?) still have hope lurking somewhere. Hope that someone, just one person will prove them wrong.
It only takes a little encouragement to bring Hope alive again. I’ve found this out recently for myself. Just a few actions from another person brought hope (and love) flaring to life again, and that feeling is exhilarating.
Faith, Hope and Love are the three strongest forces in the universe. Hope makes us dream bigger, hope keeps our hearts soft when things around us are too much to bear.
Hope says don’t just look with your eyes, look with your heart.
