Let hope lift you up

Time looking back

Ten years looking forward can be like impossible to plan for as everything one might have purposed or predicted could have been derailed by the vicissitudes of life and circumstance, we seem to take each day as it comes working towards something and hoping to achieve much.

Looking back ten years, however, presents a different perspective and though one can elicit moments and situations as milestones that have passed, it almost seems like yesterday, whether coming through misfortune or otherwise.

If anything defines this same day ten years ago, it was the spirit of hope in the face of catastrophic loss, for the 1st of May 2012 was a bookend to my life experience where after cancer, the loss of status and means, I had lost my home of ten and a half years and was handing the keys over to a young couple who had bought my home for a song.

Blog: Thought Picnic: It's Goodbye to Oostelijke Handelskade 1121

Breaking away to rise

There was much I could dwell upon, but I decided instead to walk away, I needed to create new memories and write a better story from a situation that appeared to overwhelm my ability to begin to rebuild from the multitude of adversities that started in mid-2009 and continued a slow burn of ultimate realisation towards radical change almost 3 years later.

By the time I had sold my home for a loss, there was nothing left to keep me in The Netherlands and the impetus to depart and return to The UK against all other entreaties had begun. I did eventually leave in mid-August of 2012 and from then things took a turn for the better in health, in life, in work, and now in love.

Hope beyond the maelstrom

I have a strong witness, it is the witness of the power of hope in the midst of knowing that you are living to live well, that optimism has a drive that tells you with the determination that whatever you are going through shall pass, pass into the past, pass into history, pass into the making of a new story. I can witness that I have been blessed with goodness, mercy, favour, grace, fortune, opportunity, and new chances with the thrill of adventure and excitement.

You might have heard from many that you should never give up, and you should not, but sometimes, there is nothing to undergird that in your circumstances, it is like being caught in a hopeless, helpless situation. I can say, we are more caught by the limit of our ability to imagine beyond where we are at, it is the valley of the shadow of death, a shadow, it is, not death itself and like the Psalmist says, we walk through it and lay down in green pastures beside the still waters.

As long as there is life, let your soul be restored with possibilities beyond where you are at, and return after the passage of time to reflect on the fact that you had more capacity and strength than you ever knew you had to first face your storms and not be swept away by its ferocity, however long it lasted, to enter into the glowing sunshine and beauty of telling a better story. Shalom!