I recently learned that the root of the Hebrew word for hope (tikvah) is “to wait”.
In other words, in Hebrew, to hope means to wait.
This blew my mind a little.
Because I’ve done a lot of waiting in my life.
And it’s often been a struggle to try to maintain a sense of hope in the midst of the long, lonely, endless waiting.
But what if the very act of waiting
IS AN ACT OF HOPING.
What if hope is not a feeling I have to maintain while I’m waiting, but an action I can keep taking:
To continue to wait.
Anyway, along those lines.
I really, really don’t like this part of spring. I’m kinda ornery and kinda sad and kinda sick and always cold and just waiting and waiting and waiting for there to be green and warm and no threat of snow in the weekly weather forecast.
Yes I do feel hope when I see the buds and the little bits of green beginning to burst forth. But I still feel cold, and sick, and crabby.
But I think I’m just going to trust that the the waiting itself is a form of hope. That the hope will one day be fulfilled. And that I’m closer to my hope being fulfilled than I have ever been before.
Until then, I’m taking Charlie on long walks and breathing in the fresh air and listening to the returning birds and trying not to get impatient with the brown and the wind and the chill.
Oh who am I kidding, I’m impatient.
But such is spring, friends. And such is waiting. And, apparently, such is hope.
xo
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