Tuesday, January 17, 2012

Living with Hope

So much easier said than done, but how I LONG to live with hope.

"Optimism and hope are radically different attitudes. Optimism is the expectation that things--the weather, human relationships, the economy, the political situation, and so on--will get better. Hope is the trust that God will fulfill God's promises to us in a way that leads us to true freedom. The optimist speaks about concrete changes in the future. The person of hope lives in the moment with the knowledge and trust that all of life is in good hands.
All the great spiritual leaders in history were people of hope. Abraham, Moses, Ruth, Mary, Jesus, Rumi, Gandhi, and Dorothy Day all lived with a promise in their hearts that guided them toward the future without the need to know exactly what it would look like. Let's live with hope."

Henri Nouwen

2 comments:

Adrienne said...

I think one of the hardest parts of living with hope is "trusting that God will fulfill his promises to us in a way that leads to true freedom" because what we think are his promises to us and what are really his promises don't always line up when optimism gets in the way...if that makes sense? But hope is better than optimism any old day!

xoxox

Anonymous said...

Beautiful, Erin.