Hope

Prov. 10:28 “The hope of the righteous shall be gladness: but the expectation of the wicked shall perish.”

Do you have hope? In the world? In people?

The definition of hope in the dictionary is: 
*the feeling that what is wanted can be had or that events will turn out for the best: or 
*to believe, desire, or trust:

Yesterday I had hope that someone would come and plow us out of the 14 inches of snow that lay on the ground like a baby in a crib. The snow had imprisoned us in our homes so hope was all we had to hold onto if we were ever going to see the ground again. On Wednesday we had a family event, we all took turns out there with the one shovel we own. A path was made around the house leading to the front door; a little area was made for my dog so she could get out there too. I had hope we’d be freed and it happened by us all pulling together with the same hope on our quest.

Prov. 13:12 “Hope deferred maketh the heart sick: but when the desire cometh, it is a tree of life.”

Funny thing is Monday and Tuesday we HAD to have a little area for Sassy but the winds kept blowing all the shoveled snow back and kept the area from staying clear. The clearing had to be shoveled time and time again. Even with my back problems I did my share of shoveling to keep up on the storm. 

Life is like that sometimes; we see hope within our grasp of becoming a reality only for it to be covered by the winds of negativity that blow all the ugliness back into a heap. We can shovel and shovel all of the loaded bull that is flung out there, we can hide and disguise it with snow-white clarity, but it will never be gone. People do not want to change. 

The winds blow to keep the sailboat sailing. Like lies, rubbish and insincerity, people are the winds that keep the negativity flowing. They thrive on it because they want to keep the momentum moving forward and around and around the world it goes.

I have no hope in mankind. They are all set on destroying the world and the way I see it, they are succeeding. One positive does not shift the tons of negatives you feed the pool of hate, it’s like throwing a pebble in a raging sea and then trying to find that pebble. It isn’t there! It got gobbled up and became a part of the ocean floor. That is what your one positive thought for the day does it becomes obliterated in a sea of hate.

Yesterday hope came mounted on a John Deere tractor with a snowplow attachment that shoveled tons and tons of snow out of the long driveway allowing passage to the road needed for transportation. He plowed for hours even coming up on the back lawn giving Sassy and extended path and a much easier route to the mailbox. 

Why was I sad? He did a good job but left behind humongous tire tracks and blackened soil all over the place taking away the beauty of crystallized joy that I saw for days. I was sad because it metaphorically spoke to me that this is what man does to the beauty in the world; they plow their way over the flowers of the world with their hate and anger leaving behind mud. 

I held out for hope that the warmth would beautify everything again, instead I woke to more snow, falling aimlessly trickling and blowing and covering all the ugliness exposed yesterday. Man has within his hand the power to beautify the world but instead he chooses the darkness that he tucks away in his soul. 

Prov.29:20 “Seest thou a man that is hasty in his words? there is more hope of a fool than of him.”

As dark matter swallows up parts of the cosmos, man in his darkness is swallowing up the globe called earth. They feed off this darkness and serve it to unwitting victims and people gobble this crud up like it’s mashed potatoes and gravy.

While I maintain hope in the pure white snow and the written Word of God. I’ll allow Him to judge the men who have sent their soul to hell all in the name of God? This is a sad day humans.

Isa. 38:18 “For the grave cannot praise thee, death can not celebrate thee: they that go down into the pit cannot hope for thy truth.”

Hope…there IS reason to HOPE is there not?

Quotation Saturday ~ Let It Go

Eph. 2:2 “Wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience:”

THE PAST… LET IT GO

They say the atrocity is what happened in the past. I say the atrocity is dwelling on what happened in the past.”

~ Joni Zipp

“If you want to forget something or someone, never hate it, or never hate him/her. Everything and everyone that you hate is engraved upon your heart; if you want to let go of something, if you want to forget, you cannot hate.”

~ C. Joybell C.

“Renew, release, let go. Yesterday’s gone. There’s nothing you can do to bring it back. You can’t “should’ve” done something. You can only DO something. Renew yourself. Release that attachment. Today is a new day!”

~ Steve Maraboli

“Know that everything is in perfect order whether you understand it or not.”

~ Valery Satterwhite

“Let go. Why do you cling to pain? There is nothing you can do about the wrongs of yesterday. It is not yours to judge. Why hold on to the very thing which keeps you from hope and love?”

~ Leo Buscaglia

RHETORIC

“We spend so much time bantering about the words when the real open conversations might very well be our actions. I worry about our rhetoric.”
~ Anna Deavere Smith

“From this point of view, science - the real game in town - is rhetoric, a series of efforts to persuade relevant social actors that one's manufactured knowledge is a route to a desired form of very objective power.”
~ Donna J. Haraway

“However tiresome to others, the most indefatigable orator is never tedious to himself. The sound of his own voice never loses its harmony to his own ear; and among the delusions, which self-love is ever assiduous in attempting to pass upon virtue, he fancies himself to be sounding the sweetest tones”
~ John Quincy Adams

“When you depart from standard usage, it should be deliberate and not an accidental lapse. Like a poet who breaks the rules of poetry for creative effect, this only works when you know and respect the rule you are breaking. If you have never heard of the rules you are breaking, you have no right to do so, and you are likely to come off like a buffoon or a barbarian. Breaking rules, using slang and archaic language can be effective, but it is just as likely to give you an audience busy with wincing.”
~ N.D. Wilson

“Again, it is absurd to hold that a man ought to be ashamed of being unable to defend himself with his limbs, but not of being unable to defend himself with speech and reason, when the use of rational speech is more distinctive of a human being than the use of his limbs. And if it be objected that one who uses such power of speech unjustly might do great harm, that is a charge which may be made in common against all good things except virtue, and above all against the things that are most useful, as strength, health, wealth, generalship. A man can confer the greatest of benefits by a right use of these, and inflict the greatest of injuries by using them wrongly.”
~ Aristotle

NEGATIVITY…LET IT GO!

“People tend to be generous when sharing their nonsense, fear, and ignorance. And while they seem quite eager to feed you their negativity, please remember that sometimes the diet we need to be on is a spiritual and emotional one. Be cautious with what you feed your mind and soul. Fuel yourself with positivity and let that fuel propel you into positive action.”
~ Steve Maraboli

“Your perspective on life comes from the cage you were held captive in.”
~ Shannon L. Alder

“Buy a gift for a dog, and you'll be amazed at the way it will dance and swerve its tail, but if you don't have anything to offer to it, it won't even recognize your arrival; such are the attributes of fake friends.”
~ Michael Bassey Johnson

“Constantly exposing yourself to popular culture and the mass media will ultimately shape your reality tunnel in ways that are not necessarily conducive to achieving your Soul Purpose and Life Calling. Modern society has generally ‘lost the plot’. Slavishly following its false gods and idols makes no sense in a spiritually aware life.”
~ Anthon St. Maarten

POSITIVITY…LIVE

“Dwell on the beauty of life. Watch the stars, and see yourself running with them.”
~ Marcus Aurelius

“Life is a bowl of cherries. Some cherries are rotten while others are good; its your job to throw out the rotten ones and forget about them while you enjoy eating the ones that are good! There are two kinds of people: those who choose to throw out the good cherries and wallow in all the rotten ones, and those who choose to throw out all the rotten ones and savor all the good ones.”
~ C. JoyBell C.

“When you connect to the silence within you, that is when you can make sense of the disturbance going on around you.”
~ Stephen Richards

“What I am suggesting is that each of us turn from the negativism that permeates our society and look for the remarkable good among those with whom we associate, that we speak of one another’s virtues more than we speak of one another’s faults, that optimism replace pessimism, that our faith exceed our fears. When I was a young man and was prone to speak critically, my father would say: “Cynics do not contribute, skeptics do not create, doubters do not achieve.”
~ Gordon B. Hinckley

Amen Mr. Hinckley ~ “Cynics do not contribute, skeptics do not create, doubters do not achieve.”