Hope...

In 1989, my sister passed away from injuries sustained in a car accident. I was twenty and on the verge of moving away from home. She had just turned seven.

In the future, I hope to use this blog to re-examine this tumultuous period of my life. What insights, if any, it will bring me, I cannot guess. But maybe, just maybe, it might bring some comfort and possibly a small fraction of hope to someone else that might be experiencing something similar.

I don't claim to know anything special or insightful in regards to losing a loved one or the grief that follows; I don't claim to have made it through the madness with any particular ease; I don't even claim that I (or any other person for that matter) ever gets over losing a loved one; I only claim to share my recollections about living, loving and loss.

Please keep in mind that these memories are mine and mine alone. Neither substantiated nor corrorated by anyone else that was there and close to me. They are what they are: memories from a boy on the verge of manhood, perhaps forced to grow a little too quickly, looking back down the fading path of time to that one sorrowful day.

As I embark on this journey, I'd like to remind anyone who reads this that there is hope. There is hope in Christ, first and foremost. But there is hope in within oneself and what can be overcome and accomplished; there is hope in our family and friends; there is hope in helping others; there is hope everywhere, now if we'd just open our eyes, minds, and hearts.

As I'll go into detail in another post someday, I wasn't always full of hope. I despaired. I treated others wrongly. I lacked responsibility. I lacked compassion and love. All of this I lacked, especially following my sister's death. I'm sure my close friends and family would attest to this.

It took a while, but after all these years, I hope.

I'll leave you with this quote:

Nothing worth doing is completed in our lifetime,
Therefore, we are saved by hope.
Nothing true or beautiful or good makes complete sense in any immediate context of history;
Therefore, we are saved by faith.
Nothing we do, however virtuous, can be accomplished alone.
Therefore, we are saved by love.
No virtuous act is quite a virtuous from the standpoint of our friend or foe as from our own;
Therefore, we are saved by the final form of love which is forgiveness.

- Reinhold Niebuhr