Blessings, Bliss, and Bailey: Finding Love In A Hopeless Place

Such a great song, every time it comes on Bailey and I rock out! However, this past week when I listened, it changed meaning. Is it possible to find love in a hopeless place OR is it possible to be hopeless?
I will go with the latter. Recently I have overheard or read of friends, family, acquaintances, and strangers struggling to find hope. All around me I see people giving up or feeling alone. This week, as Bailey and I jammed out to Rihanna, I realized - there is always hope. Even when you think that hope does not exist or cannot be found, it is there. One important facet of hope is knowing that it does not equal control. So many people try to "control" misfortune, bad news, and life circumstances. That is not hope. Hope is what happens when all else fails and you are left with nothing. That is when God enters in. He does His best work at your weakest moments - believe me, I know.
When we walk with God and follow his teachings, there is always hope. It may not be the hope you were wishing for, but it is definitely the hope you have been praying for.
I have shared a lot of the feelings and trials of our years leading to our adoption of Bailey but have not talked much about my moments of lost hope. Looking back - God was doing some serious refining of my soul. I was working so hard to control and He was working so hard to ignore my pleas... all the while, preparing me.
Hope can be found in knowing that bad things don't just happen. I can't stand it when people say, "Why do bad things happen to good people?" Really? Do you even know what good is? I can certainly say in front of God, I won't be looking too good... Chances are I will feel shameful and undeserving. When bad things happen, we have to look for the hope in them. What is He trying to promise you? What is He revealing in you? How is He trying to refine you?
I know that for me, trying to control conception was a fail. But letting go and having hope gave Christian and I the greatest gift. Now, imagine applying that to all of those "Why Me?" moments - Imagine how amazing those gifts will be!
Easter of course added an entire new element to this theme of hope. What is it all about anyway? Jesus' death and resurrection gives hope to the world. Jesus rose again so that we, though destined to die, should not despair, worrying that with death, life is completely finished; Christ is risen to give us hope.
Reading the Easter story to Bailey gave me a fresh outlook. I wonder what Jesus' friends thought as their leader, their messiah, was being put to death? I am sure that they felt a loss of hope... But on that Sunday - he gave them a hope they could not have dreamed of.
This Easter, Pope Benedict reminded us that "since the dawn of Easter, a new Spring of hope has filled the world; from that day forward our resurrection has begun, because Easter does not simply signal a moment in history, but the beginning of a new condition: Jesus is risen not because his memory remains alive in the hearts of his disciples, but because he himself lives in us, and in him we can already savor the joy of eternal life."
And I guess that is all I am trying to say. We always have hope - there is no hopeless place, and if there is, you certainly can't find love there - Sorry Rihanna.
I hope that all of my friends, family, acquaintances, and even strangers can see God working in their life desperately trying to reveal to them the hope that He offers - you only have to say the word :)

With our hearts open and our hope fulfilled, Christian and I had a wonderful Easter weekend. Mass was inspiring and we followed that up with an awesome afternoon with our closest friends. Clowns, Easter bunnies, eggs, and lots of smiles filled the air as we celebrated what life is really about :)