I'm still here...and a bit about HOPE

I know folks check the blog regularly and I'm sorry I haven't written anything lately. Sigh...I'm here, I'm okay, just sort of uninspired and frankly, lacking strength and energy. But I do have plans to write some stories soon for you of past ranching experiences, including some photos. One such story I may start with is when a dead calf came back to life by my using prayer and CPR!

I read something this morning. Someone had written, "Pain is the sixth sense." Those five words hit home for me. Pain, anymore, has become as innate as my sense of touch, hearing, seeing. It's just always there. That unwelcome house guest who I need to realize is not going anywhere. I might as well write it in as a dependent on my tax forms!

But along with pain, and what makes pain bearable, is gratefulness. In fact, gratitude far outweighs the pain because I've been living with it much longer and it is a part of my inner being much deeper, much more entrenched than pain will ever be. I'm glad for that. I'm glad (though it is through no work of my own) that I can sit in the passenger seat of our truck, tucked snugly and restrictively into the Aspen collar, and gasp at the beauty of a mountain I've seen a couple hundred times already. I can't turn my head to follow the view, but the image stays with me, just like images of the past linger in my psyche.

And I know with confidence there will be another drive soon when I will revel in the nature outside my car window, just like I know there will be a future where I can once again be a part of that outside world which blessed all of my days.

Yesterday, while driving, we listened to Rush Limbaugh on the radio. He litanized about the differences between faith and hope, saying that hope means you do nothing, you just "hope" things will work out. Faith means you know things will work out and you act upon that faith.

Poor Rush. Though I often agree with his political leanings, he is dead wrong in his use of this often-misunderstood word. "Hope" means, by definition, "something you place your confidence in." The Bible tells us that "faith is the substance of things hoped for."

My vision of a healthy future is my hope. Which doesn't mean that it's something I wish will work out. My hope is a firm goal, a place that already exists based upon my faith and my confidence in the Lord. "All things work together for good to those who love God and are the called according to his purpose" (Romans 8:28).

I don't wish that I'll do fine, I move toward to that shining hope just up ahead over the hill.