God’s love shines light into my life. Even when I am caught up in the darkness of fear, sadness, or general unease that I can’t quite name, I’ve learned there are always glimmers of hope and goodness that are present if I’m awake and willing to look for them. The...
Practice Hope – By Pat Derry. Member Blog, Day 12
It didn’t seem possible! Suddenly I was forced to sit quietly at home, leaving the work I loved! But vertigo was relentless; conversing for an hour was too much. I reluctantly accepted my new reality. My daughter became my guardian angel, and the care and prayers of family and church...
Writing Is An Act of Hope – By Martha Wegner. Member Blog, Day 11
“I feel that writing is an act of hope, a sort of communion with our fellow [human beings].” - Isabelle Allende Last year, I made a commitment to put my Advent practice to work in a concrete and tangible way. My plan was to choose one of the Advent themes,...
Practice Hope – By Karen Earhuff. Member Blog, Day 10
Thirteen years ago I had the most severe headache of my life. I was experiencing the bursting of a brain aneurysm. I went through surgery where 2 aneurysms were closed with titanium clips. I was in a sorry state, physically and mentally and spent 31 days at St. Joseph’s ICU....
Practice Hope – By Jayne Hovda. Member Blog, Day 9
I had been struggling with the concept of practicing hope because I was stuck on the idea that I first had to find hope. This is easy when I make my world small and look within my family and neighborhood because I am blessed in my life. The difficulty comes...
Practice Hope – By John Teipel. Member Blog, Day 8
I was shocked! As a young 30-year-old runner, someone who’d been physically active and healthy all my life, I was stunned in 1999 when I felt like I was having a heart attack. In follow-up with a cardiologist, I learned that I needed a mitral valve replacement. No problem –...
Practice Hope – By Garth Englund. Member Blog, Day 7
The world needs a little more hope. The discernment of my call to Seminary was, at a fundamental level, centered on a desire to help bring God’s hope shown in Jesus Christ to a world in need. Too often, unfortunately, rather than living as examples of hope, the followers of...
Practicing Hope in the Work I Do For Pay – By Erika Taibl. Member blog post, Day 6
I changed jobs this year. For three years, I worked in communications for a Fortune 200 food and agriculture company. I had challenging and good work to do. I had opportunities to learn and grow. I worked with talented people. I was compensated well. I was rising in the company,...
Practicing Hope – by Drew Stever. Member Blog, Day 5
“Trump administration rolls back protections for transgender students.” “Administration announces they will ban transgender people from serving in the military.” “Hate Violence Against Trans People Still ‘Disturbingly Common’” “Candace Towns is the 25th Trans Person Murdered in 2017” (posted on 11/2) It was around this time last year that I...
Practicing Hope – by Dave Schutt. Member Blog, Day 4
As a young man working in a lab in St. Paul, I looked up to the engineers I worked with and thought, “I can do that…I want to do that.” The path to get there was not an easy one but a few night classes, a good enough score on...