The only option for the journey… hope.

“Not I, nor anyone else can travel that road for you.
You must travel it by yourself.
It is not far. It is within reach.
Perhaps you have been on it since you were born, and did not know.
Perhaps it is everywhere – on water and land.”
― Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass

(arbor walkway Schönbrunn Palace, Vienna, Austria / Julie Cook / 2012

It’s the alarm again. . .5:00, 4:30, 4:00, 5:30 –all of the A.M. variety.
It’s Monday or is it Tuesday? I know it’s not Friday, I’d know if it was Friday.
It’s cold.
It’s dark.
Is it raining, do I hear rain? Grrreeat. . .
Pull the covers up.
The bathroom. I need to go to the bathroom.
D@%n-it!!
Ok, ok, I’m up–don’t you see, I’m up already.
Ugh, my feet. Oh they hurt.
I can’t do this.
I can’t do this another morning.
I’m not doing this another morning!!

And so it goes.
Morning after morning. Day after day.
This is Life and Life is, for better or worse, a journey.
A long tiring journey.
–Or—
For some, perhaps the journey is far too short.
Time is limited. Deadlines loom, prognosis loom, the ending looms. . .
Depends on who you ask.

And yet we can’t seem to wait for the weekend, or for tomorrow, or for next week, or for the end of the week. . .
–Or–
For some, they don’t want it to be the end of the week, the end of the day, the end of a weekend, or simply not even tomorrow.
Depends on who you ask.

Life is a journey.
It starts the day we are born. . .no, better yet, actually it starts when we are conceived.
It doesn’t end until the day we die. . .no, better yet, that isn’t the end–but then again, I can’t speak to that part as I’ve not gotten that far. . .
But what I do know is that life is indeed a journey.
And there are day’s I’ve been on better journeys.

Yet delightfully each morning, each blessed beautiful brand new morning, hurting bones or not, there is something new, something unknown.
No one can tell me what this day will hold as no one has lived it yet. Oh we can guess given what transpired yesterday, the day before, but still, no one is certain, no one can say for sure what this day holds, what it entails.
There is a bit of mystery here as this is the unknown.
Uncharted waters.
New.

And so it is on this brand new morning to a brand new day to this brand new week, still in the beginnings of a brand new year, I wish for you a journey.
A journey new and full of discovery.
A journey of hope—as that is what each new morning offers to you, as it offers to me, a gift of hope.

Despite any dreary prediction for a new day— be it poor weather, dreaded meetings, unavoidable tests, undesirable appointments. . . no one, not any living soul, knows what is in store for any of us—as no one can see to the other side of the day. Thankfully no one can see.
We may not have much offered to us in this world but one thing is certain. . .just as it is one of the unalienable truths about life, we all have hope–each living breathing person is offered hope.
As hope does not discriminate. It knows not color, race, religion, sex, status, finances, education, geography. . .hope is offered to us all.
Thankfully there is always hope. . . the mere act of a sunrise is testament alone to that single undeniable truth.

So as you start the new journey of this new day, this new week, this new year—go forward, go forward with hope. It’s the only true guarantee any of us is given each new morning.

And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.
Romans 5:5