Hope is scary, and gritty.

"Hope is a radically dangerous passion. Hope is anticipation. It is a vision of the future that guides how the present will be lived."  Dan Allender from Bold Love

I feel like I'm in a dance with hope, not a graceful waltz or passionate tango, but a war dance, and I want hope to win.  As much as I want hope to win, I will fight till the end against it.  Hope demands relational risk, and not about whether or not I will experience the hurt of disappointment, but whether or not this time I will be disappointed, because I cannot avoid disappointment.  Hope does not try to erase the fall, but stares it down with the knowledge that the score has already been settled and we are just waiting to see how it all plays out.

Hope grieves and rages and celebrates, it does not shrink back nor hide. Hope lays bare one's soul, revealing all and believing that one day my longings and desires will be fully realized, so I need not be ashamed of them now.