Quotes about Hope

But grief is not a force and has no power to hold. You only bear it. Love is what carries you, for it is always there, even in the dark, or most in the dark, but shining out at times like gold stitches in a piece of embroidery.

This, I thought, is what is meant by "thy will be done" in the Lord's Prayer, which I had prayed time and again without thinking about it. It means that your will and God's will may not be the same. It means there's a good possibility that you won't get what you pray for. It means that in spite of your prayers you are going to suffer. It means you may be crucified.

And yet a knowledge is here that tenses the throat as for song: the inheritance of the ones, alive or once alive, who stand behind the ones I have imagined, who took into their minds the troubles of this place, blights of love and race, but saw a good fate here and willingly paid its cost, kept it the best they could, thought of its good, and mourned the good they lost. (From the ending of Where in Clearing, p179)

Shall we do without hope? Some days there will be none. But now to the dry and dead woods floor they come again, the first flowers of the year, the assembly of the faithful, the beautiful, wholly given to being.

We travelers, walking to the sun, can't see Ahead, but looking back the very light That blinded us shows us the way we came, Along which blessings now appear, risen As if from sightlessness to sight, and we, By blessing brightly lit, keep going toward That blessed light that yet to us is dark. Sabbaths 1999 VI

And so how was a human to pray? I didn't know, and yet I prayed. I prayed the terrible prayer: "Thy will be done." Having so prayed, I prayed for strength. That seemed reasonable and right enough. As did praying for forgiveness and the grace to forgive. I prayed unreasonably, foolishly, hopelessly, that everybody in Port William might be blessed and happy—the ones I loved and the ones I did not. I prayed my gratitude

Whatever is singing is found, awaiting the return of whatever is lost.

Faith puts you out on a wide river in a little boat, in the fog, in the dark.

You think the winter will never end, and then, when you don't expect it, when you have almost forgotten it, warmth comes and a different light.

Living without expectations is hard but, when you can do it, good. Living without hope is harder, and that is bad. You have got to have hope, and you mustn't shirk it. Love, after all, hopeth all things. But maybe you must learn, and it is hard learning, not to hope out loud, especially for other people. You must not let your hope turn into expectation.

In time, against conscience and even will, my grief for him began to include grief for myself. Sometimes I would get the feeling that I was going to waste. It was my life calling me to itself. It was the light that shines in darkness calling me back into time.

Living without expectations is hard but, when you can do it, good. Living without hope is harder, and that is bad. You have got to have hope, and you mustn't shirk it. Love, after all, "hopeth all things." But maybe you must learn, and it is hard learning, not to hope out loud, especially for other people. You must not let your hope turn into expectation.