January 22, 2021 – The Twenty-Ninth Blog of the RestorationAge

As I type the first draft of this Friday blog on Wednesday, I am watching the inauguration of the new President of the United States, Joseph R. Biden and of our very first female Vice-President, Kamala D. Harris. I have the same feeling today that I had when I watched the first inauguration of President Obama in 2008. It’s a feeling of pride, love, and hope for this country; for our past, for our future.

Pride, Love, and Hope. But the greatest of these is hope. It is a most amazing state of mind that is based on the expectation of a positive outcome of events in our lives and/or events in our world that will ultimately affect us and those we love. When we have hope we gather confidence to believe in things that we haven’t seen or can’t yet see.

It begins every morning when we wake up, in that moment before our consciousness and daily concerns take over, hope springs eternal, and nothing can stand in our way. But then our feet hit the floor and the first limiting belief creeps in, then another, until the mind is flooded with reasons why you shouldn’t have it.

But I think that if we learn how to look for and find signs of hope each day it will become easier to manifest in our lives. When do you feel the most hope? Try holding a newborn and smelling that sweet new skin and not have hope. Try snuggling the fur of a kitten or getting a whiff of puppy breath and not have hope.

Hold the hand and look into the eyes of an older person – family or not – and feel the love and trust there, the feeling that you are the most important thing to them in that moment and that they believe absolutely in you. Hope. Hope. Hope.

It is present when I see or hear of someone accomplishing something they have been striving toward for many days, weeks, months, years. My friend Denise was nearly killed in a head on accident that left her in a wheelchair with a spinal cord injury at C-6. But with pure determination and belief in herself, she recently posted a video of her swimming, alone and unassisted. The strides made and the life she is building give an amount of hope that exceeds all belief.

How many little girls before Wednesday believed that they could ever hold one of the highest offices in the land? It’s a hard thing to believe in things you have never seen before. But Kamala Harris broke that glass ceiling today when she took the oath of office. She dared to dream, she answered the call, and now she has given clear hope to countless numbers of girls and women. She proved that they can be whatever they want to be, whether that is Vice-President, President, the first woman to walk on Mars, or the first in her family to go to college.

So, friends, take ahold of all the hope you find and drain it, apply it to your life. Because when you are able to harness and grow your own, you, in turn, are able to give it away freely to others. And nothing begets more hope than spreading it around. It will come back to you tenfold.

“You may not always have a comfortable life and you will not always be able to solve all of the world’s problems at once but don’t ever underestimate the importance you can have because history has shown us that courage can be contagious and hope can take on a life of its own.” – Michelle Obama

I am sending out a hug of hope to all of you in this most extraordinary time. Till next week. Cheers!

LLM