Love and hope belong together in us all

​I am spending time this week with some folks who have come from really hard places to live lives that are now offering amazing contributions to others living in their own hard places.

I had a young lady tell me yesterday that she never knew how bad her childhood was until someone told her later in life how bad it should have been based on things she experienced. She said the loving relationship she had with her mom always left her feeling hopeful about the future. That hope blinded her and protected her from the hopelessness she could have experienced.

Love can do that.

And yet there are also folks in the very same room who grew up without love, but always hoped they'd find it one day. And now they have.

And now the entire room is filled with spreaders of hope and love.

The bible tells us in 1 Corinthians that love hopes all things.

It is my experience over the last several years, both in exploring my own story and in exploring the stories of others, that love and hope rarely live too far apart. The smallest dose of hope will find love; even the smallest dose of love can ignite giant hope.

It makes sense, though, doesn't it? That the two belong together.

If you have experienced disappointment in love, only hope will afford you the bravery to go there again. And if you are a life without hope, it is usually love that throws you a lifeline.

Love is rarely found without hope; hope rarely endures without love. They are not meant to be searching for one another but naturally belong together.

If you are longing for love today, maybe begin with just a mustard seed of hope. And if you are feeling without hope today, maybe go offer someone even the smallest measure of love.

Eventually they will join forces in your life. Hope and love. I have heard stories from a group of people this week who remind me there is no greater force than hope and love working together in one's life.

No greater force working together in a society.

Maybe some of us need to choose to have hope today, some of us to go love. And we need to keep choosing that until we have a world full of people who no longer feel without either one.

Love and hope, they belong together in all of us.