Hope believes the time will come.  I didn’t sleep well last night.  For some reason, my body clock believed it was time to be awake from 1:30 a.m to 4:00 a.m.  And as my mind conversed with itself, it was agreed that sleep would come when it’s time.

Carrying a heavy head today, slowly and mechanically going through the necessary motions of the day eventually brought me to my desk.  It was time to write.  Yet my mind and heart couldn’t connect as easily as yesterday.  And so the conversation with myself continued, “you will write something of value when it’s time.”

As many of you may have read in previous posts, time is one of my fascinations.  So it is fitting that my relationship with hope has brought me to the intersection of time and space.

Over many years, I used up time hurrying and struggling to keep up with self-imposed expectations.  It is only recently I learned to slow down enough to appreciate the space between time and the power of the pauses while I patiently wait for the right time.

However, I still need to learn.  My hopeful anticipation when I’m assured of a certain outcome differs significantly from enduring a proverbial walk through a desert searching for a stream.  Why do we find it so much easier to retain a hopeful spirit as we move toward an expected outcome than to believe that our needs will be met when wandering in the wilderness without a clear destination in sight? 

It takes faith to bring us hope.  Hope is the stream in the desert.  It will sustain us.  So many times we forget to believe and we may lose our way.  But believing that everything will come in its own due time…may just be the hope that brings us what we need.

-Erika K Rothwell