I blogged every single day for about five years, then ran out of things to say.  So now I only blog when I’m inspired.  🙂

Which I am, at the moment.

*****

This photo is close, but not exactly like mine. But it should give you an idea.

I don’t know about you, but lately  I’ve found it easy to look around and think that I’m living through the hardest time of my life (and I thought it would be easier after the kids were “grown.” Ha!)

I consider our country and see a celebrity businessman running for President . . . and winning.  I consider my family, and see my husband working harder than ever to establish a ministry after he was pushed out of a job he’d held for 27 years. I look at the economy and realize that people aren’t prospering, and I’m working harder than ever to help pay the mortgage.

But I didn’t lose my hope until this past week.

I was in Las Vegas, alone, attending a Photoshop conference because my new part-time career requires a good degree of knowledge about retouching and the like. I was sitting at the Johnny Rockets counter, eating a burger and talking to a woman from Mexico, when I leaned over to grab my iPad. I usually hang my glasses from my necklace, and the glasses caught on the underside of the counter. I felt the tension and then–the necklace broke.

I don’t know if you’ve ever noticed, but for YEARS I have worn a simple silver chain with three little silver droplets on it. They are engraved with my three favorite words: HOPE, INSPIRE, and DREAM.  My life goals on a silver chain.

Anyway, the chain broke. I scrambled down out of my seat and found INSPIRE fairly easily.  I got back to my seat and went on chatting, but it’s hard to make small talk when your HOPE and DREAMs are missing.  So I got down again and searched under the feet of all my co-diners.  A ha!  I found my DREAM.

But try though I might, I couldn’t find my HOPE.  I prayed about it, but no success.  So eventually I gave up, gathered my camera bag and purse, and went off to another class.

Once back at my hotel, I emptied my purse–no HOPE.  I pulled everything out of my camera bag, thinking that it might have fallen in there–no HOPE.

Then, sighing, I pulled out my 18-300 lens because I knew I’d want to shoot with it the next day. And there, at the bottom of my camera bag, was HOPE, gleaming like a silver star.

All three little silver words are now back with me, and I’ve ordered a new chain.

I’m not really a hopeless person, not easily given to discouragement or despair.  Primarily because my HOPE is a person called Yeshua, Jesus, Messiah. And no matter how daunting the odds, it’s comforting to remember that we should never give up on HOPE because He never gives up on us.

Carry on, fellow dreamers!

~~Angie