Hope

So at Church yesterday we talked about having Hope. An example of a scientific experiment using big barrels of water and rats was used. The scientist wanted to see if having a sense of hope made a difference. They took a large barrell of water and placed it in a dark room - no light, no air - just stuffy and dark. They placed a rat in the barrell of water to see how long it would swim. The rat swam for 3 minutes then drowned. They then took the same barrell and filled it with water outside in an area were there was sunshine, a slight breeze and you could actually hear birds chirping. This rat swam for 36 hours. (Now if it had been milk the rat would have made butter. tee-hee) The point was that the rat was able to last a lot longer because of the hope of making it out to the dry grass and beautiful day.

So I tried to think about how that can apply to us. Do we allow our dark depressing thoughts take over when we seem to be in an impossible situation? Or do we try and have hope that this too shall pass and there are better things to come?

My Dad use to call it putting blinders on. Are we so focused on the problem that seem impossible to change that we are like a horse with blinders on the side of our head? These blinders keep us from seeing the possiblities that we have around us.

I am a BIG - HUGE - believer that attitude is everything. No mistake - bad things, hard things, stressful, unfair things happen to us all. But I thing those challenges and times in our life can be less intense and last a shorter time if we change our attitude. I am all in favor of allowing ourselves to feel the anger, frustration and hurt if needed - but after a couple of days (at the most) you have to let it go. Because those negative feelings do not allow you to move forward and make changes. If we sit in those feelings that is when we start holding grudges, feeling sorry for ourselves - or blame others for our situation. None of these things will make positive changes - or help us take steps to the solutions that are a head of us.

I think sometimes we all go through stages that we find we are still upset over things that happened years ago. What good does this do any of us? If we have been offened by someone - do we really think that person even remembers the moment we are holding on to? In most cases offense was never even meant from them.

So as St. Patrick's Day is this week - and the luck o' the irish is wished for you all - I hope we can all look at whatever challenges we face and we can hold onto the Hope and not the despair we might want to feel! And be proactive in making things go from a challenge to a blessing.