B26. Personal Reflections of Hope

Hope.  It’s more than a wish, but not quite an expectation; a necessary ingredient for a life of happiness; an anticipation of what might be.

I found myself, this first day of Advent, enumerating my own present hopes, perhaps of interest only to myself, but shared here maybe to ignite your own reflections.

1.   I hope to find peace as I seek my next church home, that, when the time is right, I will just know “this is where I belong.”

2.  I hope to spend more quality time with my family in the coming weeks, months, and years.  We are all so busy that our time together has lately become ballgames and group meals out – great in themselves, but not as a replacement for quality one-on-one connections.  I hope to be a better daughter, sister, aunt, niece, cousin . . .

3.  I hope my knee and foot issues of the past few months are a passing thing, and that I have many more years of good health to more easily enjoy life.  I hope to soon be running again, or, if not, to find a suitable exercise activity to take its place.

4.  I hope the same good health for those I so dearly love.

5.  I hope NC does not allow its constitution to become a player in the political ping-pong match, to be changed with every power shift.  The power games are inevitable, but I hope we’ll have enough respect for the constitution that we will vote this May to leave our constitution as is.  We can fight somewhere else.

6.  I hope for national education reform, soon, that we will throw out our test-motivated teaching and our unmonitorable on-line degrees, stop trading diplomas for time, and degrees for tuition payments, and return to preparing our workforce to above 6^th grade thinking skills.  I hope intelligence, instead of money, very soon becomes the driving force in our educational decisions.

7.  I hope my life, my words, and my passions will reflect the causes for which the Christ of Christmas lived and died, indeed that they will be motivated by his teachings, and will never be a stumbling block for those seeking God’s Peace.

My hopes are also my prayers.