“How would you like to live here?” He said,

As we walked through that dumpy neighborhood

Of run down trailers and dogs on chains

And I thought for a second about what he was saying

He wasn’t being judgy,

he was just trying to cheer me up

about my own life,

and that’s when I realized that it doesn’t really matter

where you come from or where you live

It’s about how much hope you have

The truth is those people in the sunken in roofs

and the leaning plywood shacks

might be happier than I am

they might be more fulfilled than me

walking down the street

In my free people t-shirt

and designer jeans

Because really we’re all the same

and we’re all stuck on the same morbid planet

Some of us just have hope that things will change

or that things will be different or better someday

And so we look at life through those eyes

and not what is daunting,

depressing,

or working against us

And I had been feeling particularly hopeless that day

like I had been stuck on the same spoke

on the same wheel

going nowhere

for years

So I said

you know what?

I would gladly live in those dumpy homes

if it meant that I had hope

if it meant that I would wake up every single day

happy to see the sunrise

and watch my kids play

That would be enough

if my heart was still full of dreams

if my soul woke up with the expectation

that things can change

that things WILL change

and if I believed

that there is still beauty

here for me

I’ve been thinking about that question ever since

and how if there is anything that the world needs

it is hope

not new houses

or cleaned up neighborhoods or more welfare money

it needs HOPE

I need hope

Like the kind that a child has in the worst of situations

still believing that life will get better

things will get easier

and that someday they will have the life they deserve.

Believing that no matter how bad or awful or hard things get

they can always, always get better

and they can always improve.

That’s the beauty of what Christ did

and what love does in our hearts

when we show up late and empty and depleted

to his table.

It shows up on our worst days,

when our most valiant efforts have been bored through

with doubt and hopeless depression

and we are tired

from all our failed offerings to the world

and it whispers “there’s more,

things will get better”

I’ve come to believe that hope is the most amazing gift

the hottest commodity in the world

and that no matter where we go or where we live

or what we are surrounded with

If we have hope,

we have everything

for it is hope

that makes us rich.