Hope from a book...

While pondering what seems like a recent rash of bad news all around me this morning, I was struck by just how much it was affecting me. I myself haven't received any particular bad news lately, but it seems as though the lives of many others I know are crashing down in a way, or have just taken a downward turn. Of course, it then hit me how silly and selfish I was being to be concerned only with how it was affecting my own mood today. (Although I think it's called empathy, what I'm feeling.) But still, as someone who has experienced hard times before, though they sometimes pale in comarison to those I see around me, I try to remember to always have hope, even when things seem hopeless.

 Here's the thing, where do you find hope? It's not one of those things you can just summon up inside of you, especially when things seem hard. In fact, in the hardest times of your life, hope is just...gone. Remember the story of Pandora's box? She lets out all the bad things like lies and despair, but closes the lid just in time to leave hope trapped inside. Hope, the one thing that had the power over all the others.

Well, I don't have hope in a box or a jar. But I know where else to find it. So, I thought today that I might share a little something that has never, ever failed to give me hope.

"I would have despaired unless I had believed that I would see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living." Psalm 27:13 

I guess that might seem like a strange verse to pick out of all the wonderful Psalms. I picked this verse as "my verse" when I was around seventeen and going through a rought time and it has stayed with me ever since. I like that it talks about not despairing, and more importantly, believing that you will see the goodness of God someday soon. Basically, hope...from a book.