a hopeful heart

i love bloglandia. so many beautiful reminders out there today. here are just 3, by three women i greatly admire and am always so inspired by:

I try to wrap my mind around what it takes to keep this field, this family, alive and thriving. I know I should be watching her hopeful eyes and capable hands for a sign, but all I can see is her feet. How she carefully picks her way through the muddy field, how she knows where to step, how to walk, where to stand. How the immense strength of her spirit carries her, even as the frailty of her body dares her destiny and expands her hope

and this...

Skate is a word that speaks to me of letting go. Skate speaks to me of childhood, and crystal blue skies and forward motion. Skate speaks of speed and abandon and laughter.

So SKATE, I choose you as my word. I welcome you in and hope you bring a sense of ease, grace, fluidity. I know you will bring falls, and bumps, but I will remember they are teachers and like my hockey suited self, I will bounce up from them unharmed. In fact, they will make me laugh. I look forward to gliding along and seeing where we go together, you and I.

Now, you, tell me…What is your word for 2010? What do you wish to welcome in to your year?

and this...

“Can you imagine what it is to cross the ocean? For weeks you see nothing but the horizon…perfect and empty. You live in the grip of fear. Fear of storms. fear of sickness on board, fear of the immensity. So you must drive that fear down deep into you belly… study your charts, watch your compass, pray for a fair wind and hope……pure, naked, fragile, hope. At first it’s no more then a haze on the horizon…so you watch…you watch. Then it’s a smudge, a shadow in the far water. For a day…for another day, the stain slowly spreads along the horizon taking form until on the third day you let yourself believe…you dare to whisper the word, “land….” Land, life, resurrection, the true adventure…coming out of the vast unknown, out of the immensity into new life…..that is the New World.”

In the right perspective I feel that this is a overwhelmingly and bold description of a life of faith and hope… and how I can only dream it feels to be entering into the New World promised to us by our God says there is always a hope… no matter how long it has been since you saw land.

Where do you find hope?