The Power of Hope

Hope.

Hope by definition means, “a feeling of expectation and desire for a certain thing to happen.”

Think about this. 

It’s a feeling of expectation and desire.

Your marriage is going through some rough weather and yet there is this feeling of expectation and desire that you come out the other side smooth sailing. 

Hope is a spiritual quality that gives you and me a future.

It resides in all of us.

I hope the couples I counsel will learn the lessons I teach, apply them, and become better partners and have a happier marriage.

Faith: 

Hope has a cousin called Faith.

Faith means, “a complete trust or confidence in someone or something.”

Hope and Faith are these intangible qualities that you put or place into someone. 

It comes from inside you. 

If your marriage has been hit by broken trust, Hope and Faith are challenged. Your expectation and desire is that you can get through this. 

You have Hope.

You have confidence and trust in your partner that you will work through the issue and come out a better couple. 

That is Faith.

But when your partner does not take the necessary steps to right the wrong or earn back the trust, both Hope and Faith take a hit.

See, if your expectation is your partner comes clean or your desire is that they rebuild the trust and their actions don’t show this, then Hope begins to lose oxygen. A conversation begins within you that it may not work out.

Enter Faith. 

Faith recognizes Hope cannot breathe and despite all one’s efforts to make a marriage thrive, Hope touches Faith with her frail finger signaling to her that she will need Faith’s trust and confidence to make this work.

And trust me. 

As long as you hold Hope with the expectation and desire that you and your partner can work through your issues, and you have Faith in them that they will be the person you fell in love with, this is the most powerful force next to Love itself in repairing a marriage.

There is a caveat, however.

Hope and Faith work as a spiritual team that has as its expectations that the outcome will be as they envision it.

The patient will get well. 

But the patient has a part in that process. 

Your partner, like a patient, has to want to not only survive, but thrive in the marriage. 

It cannot be that there is only a pulse. Too many marriages are barely surviving on this.

They have to want to thrive. They have to want to be a part of the very thing they gave their vow to and see it do well.

They have to reach into their own reserves and realize this marriage or relationship was born with Hope and Faith. 

Remember, Hope gives us a future.

You had a future envisioned way back in the beginning. 

That future may have taken a momentary turn with someone wandering off the reservation. 

But if one has the expectation and desire for it to return to when it was really, really good, why then you have Hope.

If their actions are not  equal to the Faith you put into them, Hope will lose oxygen. 

Many of you are at this crossroads.

Hope is a powerful, powerful force. 

But it needs the person who broke the trust to do their part. 

And Faith is ever vigilant because she has confidence and trust that they will take the necessary actions to do it. 

She’s hand in hand with Hope. 

Best,
Dave Worthen#####