What the Heck is Going On?

I saw this on my morning walk the other day and just
stood there, completely mesmerized.  What a great
reminder that in darkness, there's always, always light. 

I was going to tell you a story about my 6am morning walk, where I was worrying about 457 legitimately worrisome things, when all of a sudden I felt something super sticky splat on my right ear, which turned out to be not bird poop, but something worse: tree sap (tree sap?!) from a pine tree I was walking under (did you know sap just, like, falls from trees?!) which has never happened to me before in the history of my life, and it took me a good HOUR to scrub the unbelievably sticky crap off my ear AND out of my hair because, guess what, friends, soap doesn’t do P. Diddy squat except create an exceptionally sticky paste, so I had to Google how to remove tree sap from your skin and hair and who knew but apparently the answer is cooking oil, so I frantically searched my kitchen cupboards for the best smelling cooking oil I could find, and now the tree sap is thankfully gone but I smell like a Tuscan olive oil-basted christmas tree as I make my way to a business lunch.

I guess I needed to get that off my chest.

Clearly, there’s a lot going on in my head.  And no wonder- there’s a lot going on in the world.  That’s why, apart from my little tree sap story, I had a hard time sharing something light and fluffy. 

There’s a lot of sad and scary stuff happening.  Plane crashes, genocide, hurricanes, suicide. 

A friend shared with me that’s she’s just angry.  I get it, because I’m confused, upset, worried.  

The world can be depressing.

So one option is to hide myself from the world, and hole up in my apartment where it’s clean and safe and quiet.  I don’t have to shower, I can lay around in my bathrobe, work from my couch, order a large Dominos Pizza. (Not that I’ve ever done that.  This is purely hypothetical).

But that’s not life.

I wish I had answers.  But I don’t.

So instead, I’m trying to see this as an opportunity. 

To love.

To be kind.

To lend a hand to a stranger.

To listen when a friend needs to talk. 

To be peaceful amidst chaos.

To be light when the world is dark.

To see the good when it’s so easy to see the bad.

To not lose hope.

I choose to combat the craziness- with love, light and hope.  I invite you to join me.   

But those who hope in the LORD will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not faint.  -Isaiah 40:31

We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope. - Martin Luther King, Jr.

Hope is being able to see that there is light despite all of the darkness. - Desmond Tutu

Hope is important because it can make the present moment less difficult to bear.  If we believe that tomorrow will be better, we can bear a hardship today. - Thich Nhat Hanh

What I Learned at Disneyland

"Don't worry, Kalei, I'll make her smile!"  These kids. 

A friend asked me recently how I figure out what to write about.  

The truth is, most of the time, I have no friggin clue.  In fact, on more than one occasion, panic set in: crap it’s almost Wednesday, what the heck am I gonna write about now???

But I’ve noticed a funny thing recently: during the week, a series of little events magically combine, and a theme emerges. And what I saw over and over this week was hope.  

Maybe it was completing a truly heinous half-marathon training run, a 6-mile doozy of stairs and hills and utter madness, which caused me to think hey, maybe I won’t die. Perhaps it was hearing the news that a dear friend who suffered a tragic loss, just had a beautiful baby girl.  Or maybe it was the hopeful little faces of my nieces as we waited in line at Disneyland to meet their heroes, Elsa and Anna of Frozen (a 1 1/2 hour I’m-now-best-friends-with-Tommy-and-Megan’s-mom wait, I might add). 

As I was standing in line at the Happiest Place on Earth, I thought about how my life now is in such stark contrast to a year ago.  It brought me back to the memory of a dark email I had written during one of the most difficult periods of my life.

That email was my first attempt at truly letting people know what was going on—a small cry for help that I sent to a few dear friends.  

Since I’ve always been a pretty positive person, I’m a bit embarrassed to admit this: I had lost hope.

I hadn’t read that email in a while, and I was curious, so I went back and re-read it. I was a bit shocked.  This is the part that jumped out at me:

But as I sit here, crying my eyes out--after one of my resolutions was to stop crying so much!--I still question everything, doubt whether I'll ever be happy and live a life that makes me excited to wake up in the morning.

I guess I have to.  Because at my core, I believe this can't all be for nothing.  That all this hurt, pain, loss....there must be a reason for it. I have to believe it. 

Here’s what I found so interesting: I remember that email being completely dark, depressing and hopeless. 

As it turns out, that wasn’t so at all.  

I didn’t realize until now, that I did still have hope.  Even in my darkest hour, there was a part of me that didn’t want to give up. 

And my friends weren’t ready to give up on me either. 

One of my oldest friends responded within minutes: I love you and you’re gonna be ok.  And then she said something that pierced right through me: 

Never ever ever ever give up.  Like, ever.

I wish I could say that right then and there I made the decision to turn things around.  I didn’t.  It took a little while.  But I know she planted a seed. And along with friends, family, and most importantly, my renewed relationship with God, I eventually climbed out of that pit to a new chapter of my life--stronger, happier, and overflowing with hope. 

Of course today’s Jesus Calling is about hope (I wasn’t kidding about this theme thing):  

Waiting on me means directing your attention to me in hopeful anticipation of what I will do.  It entails trusting me with every fiber of your being, instead of trying to figure things out yourself.

I also found this little gem which is my new favorite verse on hope:

May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope. Romans 15:13

So now, when I feel myself slipping into dark thoughts, I remind myself of this: 

There is always, always, always, always hope.  Like, always.