Light it Up

I talk a lot about courage and being strong.  I love the quote by Mark Twain, "Courage is not the lack of fear.  It is acting in spite of it."  That's been my courage mantra.  Move forward in the face of fear and become something bigger than my fears.  My courage is a fierce lion when I need it to be.  And then I learned through my depression, that sometimes courage is a quiet cry.  Sometimes it's just showing up each day and barely hanging on.   There are no lions roaring inside me on those days.

Today, I'm learning that courage is choosing hope; believing in something so strongly that you choose to hope even if the rest of the world is telling you there's little hope.  Actively and intentionally choosing to hope in faith, even though the fear inside is greater than the hope.  Hoping against the odds.  

Sometimes I'm afraid to hope.  But I'm not sure what I'm afraid of.  Looking foolish?  Disappointment?  Making a mistake?  All of the above?  By default, I am a prepare-for-the-worst kind of gal.  I am not a risk taker, I am a risk mitigator - sometimes obsessively so.  I run through about 100 versions of the "what if's" and try to preemptively anticipate or even remove the risks.  I imagine the worst possible scenario to see if I could make it through.  It makes me feel safe in the moment, but it's really just an illusion of control.  I'm making a plan for some imaginary future that may or may not happen, but yet I treat it as an alternate reality.  I think I'm preparing myself, but the only reality is that I'm fueling my anxiety.  

These days, I find myself in a place that calls for hope.  A place that calls for love, faith and determination.  But instead of fueling that hope, I was finding that whenever I found a little hope to hang on to, I would immediately snuff it out with a reality check and a what-if.  I'd put a warning label on my hope, "proceed with caution".  What if the worst happens?  And if I were to be painfully transparent, I was also acting out of fear of others labeling me as naive or using poor judgement.  I don't want to hear the "I told you so's".

When did I become so cynical that I would confuse hope with poor judgement?  When did I forget how to hope?  When did I forget how to dare to hope?  I have a flame of hope that burns inside me.  I lost it once and I vowed never again.  It's beautiful and warm and casts a soft glow on a harsh world.  But I was letting those perceived reality checks take center stage and hide that light.  

So I have to dig deep in my bag of courage and stop being afraid to hope.  And then find even more courage to embrace that hope, no matter what anyone else thinks or what conventional wisdom says.  To have the courage to hope even if there's a risk of being wrong, disappointed or hurt.  Maybe it doesn't sound that courageous.  But to me, it is.  Not the lion kind of courage, but the kind where I stop and take a breath when the fear creeps in.  The kind where I feel it just for a moment, then choose to breathe it out and refuse to let it take control.

I've made the decision to choose hope.  And you know what?  I'm still afraid.  But not so afraid that I can't put aside the what-ifs and say to them "I choose hope."  It's my new courage mantra.  I know what the possibilities are, good and bad.  Even so, I will not treat the fear of what may happen some day as a reality.  I choose hope. Over worry, fear, and doubt, I choose hope.  Even if it seems foolish - I still choose hope.  Because I live in a world ruled by love and mercy and grace where hope reigns supreme.

If you find yourself afraid to hope, do it anyways - choose hope over fear.  It's not foolish.  There's no shame in hope.  Hope lights our way in the darkness.  

So light it up.  Dare to hope.