Monday, December 8, 2008

Hope by a Window

"We always think of hope as grounded in the future. That’s wrong, I think. Hope is fulfilled in the future but it depends on our ability to remember that we have survived everything in life to this point—and have emerged in even better form than we were when these troubles began. So why not this latest situation, too? Then we hope because we have no reason not to hope.
Hope is what sits by a window and waits for one more dawn, despite the fact that there isn’t an ounce of proof in tonight’s black, black sky that it can possibly come."–from Scarred by Struggle, Transformed by Hope by Joan Chittister (Eerdmans)
Painting: A Woman Knitting by a Window by Peter Ilsted

2 comments:

Ruth Hull Chatlien said...

Beautiful and encouraging. And I think the distinction that hope must be based on past knowledge is so true.

Anonymous said...

Today's inspiration couldn't come at a better time. If you knew the story of my daughter and her husband and their life right now, it is about hope; however that hope is surrounded with prayer.