Are you ever overwhelmed by the pain around you in the world? I'm feeling that way today. There's a funeral in town for the matriarch of a dear, upstanding, wonderful family that has helped to make up the fabric of this community. I just learned about a friend of a friend's son who, due to some bad medication, hallucinated and wreaked havoc on his young, little, innocent body. A dear friend is facing one of the hardest days of her life. And I was reminded last night that I had forgotten the last place I ever saw my brother alive.

Why is life hard? Why does it have to hurt? Why are atrocities so rife around the world?

Most of the time I bury my head in the proverbial sand. I live my charmed life in my little bubble and pretend that my messy house and laundry piles are the biggest difficulties facing the world. Most of the time I convince myself of the illusion that life is mostly good, that people don't intentionally hurt people, that it will all work out in the end.

But the truth is, it doesn't always work out. Much as I want to, I won't be able to always protect my baby from harm or hurt or pain. Much as I try, I can't get rid of the hard things that have to be done by the people I love. I can't even ease the pain most of the time. Sometimes life just hurts.

Last night as I sat in sorrow and pain - my moment of personal anguish over some things in my life, I just hurt. But in that hurt I grasped what I always grab hold of that pulls me out of those moments: hope.

God gave us hope for those moments we spend in the depths. He gave us hope as a comfort, the very best kind of friend to gently lift our chin when the world overwhelms us. ...At least that's what it does for me.

The great thing about hope is that it's attached to what could happen, not what's most likely to happen, or what should happen, or even what has historically happened.  Hope is attached to the promise of the perfect, the off-chance, the unlikely circumstance, the one-in-a-million opportunity.

There's a line in the movie Dumb and Dumber that sums it up pretty well, I think.  Lloyd, an intellectually less-than-impressive male specimen, is smitten with Mary, a well-to-do, beautiful, highly intelligent woman.  In the scene I'm thinking of, Mary's breaking the news to Lloyd that she's not going to date him.  He asks her, "So, what are my chances? ... Like 1 in 100?"  Mary, not wanting to hurt his feelings but needing to tell the truth, gently replies, "More like 1 in a million."  Lloyd takes a moment to digest this, nods, and begins to grin, "So you're telling me there's a chance!"

Hope.  Life is hard.  Life stinks.  Life can be downright overwhelming at times.  But hope springs eternal.  Thank Heavens for that.