Finding Hope #1

"She walks by faith and dwells in hope."

We live in crazy times!  A couple of blog entries ago I was so fearful and scared of everything was happening but honestly the last week I've felt nothing but peace.  It's been amazing.  I feel like this week I've felt the spirit so strongly.  It has been a huge blessing.  And I've seen so many blessing in my life.  I truly feel joyful in it. 

I've been thinking over the last couple days about how lately I feel like I have to push myself to get here and sit down and open my book to write.  It hit me today that I needed to change something.  I love my grief book and I still open it from time to time but I'm no longer in that part of my grief.  Does that make sense?  I feel like I'm trying to force the thoughts and that doesn't feel natural or right to me.  It's hard to write about something that you aren't really feeling anymore.

Having said that, I have loved sitting down and writing about my day and things that have gone through my head and yesterday I realized I wanted to change this blog.  Instead of writing about my grief I want to write about how I've found hope in my day.  I thought it was the perfect way to remember my daughter Hope, find joy in my life and hopefully help uplift others.  And I'd love to hear about how you have found Hope.  

To start out there are so many ways in which I have found hope this last week.  I really do feel like there are so many ways in which I've been blessed this week.  So here goes!

My husband Nick and I are trying to get our finances in order and just get to a better place.  Ever since we got clobbered with medical bills and things got a bit scary it's made realize I don't really want to be in that position again.  Things worked out and we were really blessed but I just don't want to have to worry about that again.  So nick and I have committed to try and get ourselves of debt and make sure we have some savings set aside.

We decided to do a class through our church that teaches us about how to manage our finances.  We started a couple weeks ago.  Before that, we decided to sell the van and use use our little blue car exclusively, but we were upside down.  So we thought we would take out a home equity loan and put the extra money we would owe after selling the van on the loan and just pay it down.  I've felt pretty nervous about doing that because if we aren't able to make payments on the van, we lose the van however, if we can't pay payments on the home equity loan we are out of our house.  Anyway we listed our van and applied for a home equity loan but I still wasn't sure.

Our van didn't really have any hits and our home equity loan was taking for forever.  I'd been praying about what to do but wasn't super specific.  More of a "please help me to know what to do" kind of thing.  Anyway, in our class someone told me that I needed to be more specific about what I was praying for.  On Wednesday morning in my prayers I asked if we were supposed to take out the home loan and sell the van.

Nick also had an appointment at 11:00am so he headed out and I went running.  Five minutes later I got a phone call from my husband saying that the clutch had just gone out on our little blue car.  My little blue car has not had any problems since the day I purchased it in 2008.  It's been amazing and reliable!  Anyway, I told him I'd run to get the van to come pick him up so he could go to his appointment but I got in the van and it wouldn't start.

The van hasn't been started in about a month so the battery had died.  I ran to my neighbors and they were amazing and took me to pick up Nick.  We grabbed Nick and left the blue car and came home.  Nick came home and luckily because we were planning on fixing the 4runner as our back up car he had been buying parts for it.  One of the parts he had already bought was a new battery! Which was exactly the same one as what the van needed.  He got the van started and headed off to the appointment.

After he left I realized that my prayer had just been answered.  We would be keeping the van.  Which is not what I wanted but I feel like there is a reason for us to keep it, I just don't know what it is.  The crazy thing is that through out the whole thing, I was never upset.  Normally having my blue car dead would make me crazy angry and upset but instead I saw it as a blessing and that my prayer was answered.  Instead I felt joy and hope in knowing that God had answered my prayer.  

I want to share one more example real quick.  On Thursday I went the temple in the morning which was amazing!  As I left I thought I'll hit Costco real quick since it's not too far away.  It was 10:15 in the morning and thought it would be perfect timing cause it would have just opened and wouldn't be too crazy.  I was so very very wrong.  The parking lot was completely full and cars were circling looking for spots to open up.  

I found a spot and headed in.  People were walking out the entrance shaking their heads.  I went in with my shopping cart and it was full!  I continued on to the back because we needed some tissues and some wipes.  I went in the back to find them and the aisles were literally full.  I somehow found those two things are turned to the front to go check out.  Except there was a line all the way back here.  I got in the line and decided I was already committed so there was nothing to do but wait. 

As I waited I talked with those around me and everyone was so friendly. One lady asked if I would push her cart along while she went and grabbed one other thing.  After those in line around us took turns pushing carts along as we all got what we needed.  I didn't see fighting.  I didn't see arguing.  I saw people helping each other.  I saw people talking to each other.  I saw people being good and kind.  In this crazy panic people were amazing.  I made me realize that even when there is panic and fear you can still choose to be good and helpful and loving and everything will be okay.   

I think choosing to have hope in God or goodness or whatever it is you believe makes it easier to go through hard times.  I've been reflecting on the craziness that is going on and I realized the world needs more hope.  More faith.  More positivity.  I believe that fear and panic and anxiety comes from the devil.  He wants you to be unhappy.  He wants you to feel terrible.  It's helped me in knowing that, that when those feelings creep in, I can easily tell them to leave.  I know that things will be okay.  I have faith in a loving Heavenly Father.  I have faith in good people.  I have faith and hope that things will be okay.  This time can be scary or you can look at it as a time to reach out to others and love others.  It's a time to slow down and realize what really matters in your life.  I hate that people are dying because of this, it's heart breaking but there is good in all of this too and I think by choosing hope and faith we can go through this and be there for each other and come out better because of it.  

Please, let me know how you have found hope and faith in your lives this week.  Tell me about the good things you've seen that make you have faith and hope in God or humanity.