I heard a story years ago that life is like a long trough
of cement. Whatever is behind you is the past and is solid and unchangeable. No
use spending time worrying about what you said, should have said, did, or didn’t
do. On the other hand, the cement that is ahead of you is still wet and able to
be formed. Here’s where hope comes in! You get to create your past.
Next year when you are standing a little further along in
the trough, with more solid cement behind you, will you have merely arrived at
that point or will you have deliberately created your past? If the past has
been dreary to that point, maybe it is hard to have hope that things can be
better, that you can effect a change in your life that you will benefit from or
that you will be satisfied with one year down the trough.
Can you muster some hope or positive thoughts for one thing that inspires you to do something you’ve always wanted to do? Can you hope for something enough that you overcome some obstacle in your thinking or behavior that will have you standing satisfied with what’s solid behind you?
Some people hear the word hope as a cop-out word—you are merely “hoping” things will be a certain way, but not taking action to make it that way. My feeling is that hope is the beginning of doing. You must have hope that a situation can be altered before you can take action to attempt to meet a challenge.
I am sure that most of us have been in a place in the trough when all we have had is hope that things will turn out. What about times when fear of disappointment gets in the way of hopefulness? The outcome of the hopefulness is in the future, yes, and may never be met. Hopefulness, though, is a present action that produces rewarding and powerful feelings, and the act of being hopeful in and of itself may be required to create a desirable outcome.
What do you hope for for your life? For the life of our congregation? For the people of the world? What will your cement look like a year from now?
Dorine Colabella Scher
Board President
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