Giving up Hope?

If life doesn't turn out the way we would like, one understandable human reaction is to give up hope. But sometimes the miracle comes, or becomes visible, after our expectations of what should happen and how it should happen are lost.

Daniel deRoulet
Finding Your Plot in a Plotless World

Hope

Living without expectations is hard, but when you can do it, good. Living without hope is harder, and that is bad. You have got to have hope, and you mustn't shirk it. Love, after all, "hopeth all things." But maybe you must learn, and it is hard learning, not to hope out loud, especially for other people. You must not let your hope turn into expectations. But whatever you hope, you will find out that you can't bargain with your life on your own terms. It is always going to be proving itself worse or better than you hoped.

Hannah Coulter
Hannah Coulter by Wendell Berry