Hope is a bold act of imagination

​Lately, I've had more people than usual tell me about challenges they are facing. I don't know if that's because I talk alot about the challenges in my life, and in life in general - or if it's because we live in what are the most challenging times many of us have ever experienced.

Maybe it's a bit of both - I just know people are struggling. And I hate it.

Many days I'm tempted to hide from the challenges in my life. I've spent the better part of a lifetime practicing that strategy - so it's an easy one for me to turn to. Another strategy, maybe it's yours, is to stay busy and just hope and pray the challenges go away.

Edith Eger says this about challenges - and it caught my attention. She says, "Hope isn't a distraction from darkness. It's a confrontation with it."

I read that and it made me think about my boys when they were young. Like many kids, they were afraid of the dark. They'd want a light left on in the hallway. Then, as they got older, they'd learn to turn a small light on in their own rooms. And today, they want those rooms as dark as possible.

Sometimes, when life is dark, it's hard for us to imagine the other side of that darkness. Our minds get so overwhelmed with the monsters that come at us in our darkness - the fear, the anger, the resentment, the blindness - we get so trapped by the emotions that hold us down, we can't begin to imagine a life that is going to pick us up.

We can't picture that light on in the hallway. It's even harder for us to see the light switch, only feet away, us crawling out of bed and turning that light on, believing in the relief - the hope - that light wants to offer.

Eger says, "hope is an investment in curiosity."

In my darkness, I can become absolutely convinced this is life. My darkness is today. It's tomorrow. My darkness is forever.

But then we imagine the voice of a friend. We pick up the phone and we call them - curious what they might offer. We hear laughter and encouragement. And suddenly, there's a friend helping you confront the darkness instead of a friend who's a distraction from it.

Suddenly, you're imagining what the day can be instead of living convinced it's going to be what it's always been.

Eger says, "hope is a person who focuses not on what you've lost, but on what's still here for you, on the work you're called to do." And, she adds, "there's always something to do."

Some days it's hard to imagine that light switch. It's hard to imagine the world after that light gets turned on. But really, we only have two choices.

We can be sure of our darkness - that it will never end. And we will be forever right.

Or, we can boldly imagine the light. We can suit up and confront our darkness - take a fight to it - and who knows, maybe that's where we'll find the light we imagine.

Hope is only found in one of those choices. It's my choice. And it's yours.