I am participating in 31 Days of Five Minute Free Writes 2018 (all of my submissions can be found here).
Today’s prompt is: HOPE
A fellow Five Minute Friday community member, Tara, is phenomenally consistent about commenting on my contributions during the 31-day writing challenge, even when I don’t reciprocate well. I am so grateful for that.
When I did manage to reciprocate yesterday, and decided to tweet out her incredible post about broken sunglasses and grief, I noticed that she had tweeted a request that praying people send their support to @Bethanylcm.
When I clicked on Bethany’s link, I expected to find some indication of grief and despair, yet I found, in her profile, hope:
I love adoptable pets, social justice, and community building. I’m fighting stage iv metastatic cancer and believe love, hope, and science lead to miracles.
***end of five minutes, but I ate up some time adding links, etc., so I’m cheating slightly to finish my thought!***
I have also found hope in the writings of my Five Minute Friday friend, Andrew, who has pancreatic cancer. Here’s an excerpt from a recent post:
Pancreatic cancer is a hopeless fight; add to that non-Hodgkins lymphoma and you’ve got a double whammy of epic proportions.
But hope does not lie in victory.
Hope lies in taking the next step.
Hope is showing up, just one more time.
We rise from the ashes, and we grab glory.
It’s not how you play the game.
It’s that you play the game
In both cases, I am reminded that I shouldn’t leap to expect only despair when hope still has a foothold, no matter how tenuous. Hope lies in the small things sometimes (writing a sentence, choosing to keep the word “hope” in a Twitter profile). I asked myself if it made sense to include other people’s words today when five minutes goes by so quickly, but one element of belonging to one another is drawing from each other as well.
Thank you, Bethany and Andrew, for reminding us of the power of hope.
Wife of one, Mom of two, Friend of many. My pronouns are she/her/hers.
Paula, I don’t think I know one other person who represents human caring and compassion like you do. I thank God for your life. I’m grateful that in his divine Providence he made our paths cross. Be blessed and encouraged.
Thank you, Jane, so much.
Love this! Hope changes things…
Doesn’t it?
Not to be play on words-ish about this, but I hope it does (and I believe it does…).