Fill'r Up

  When you are running out of gas, you know all you have to do is find the nearest gas station and fill up, assuming of course that you have money to buy the gas.  When you are hungry, if you are like any one of my teenagers, you find yourself standing in front of the refrigerator looking for something really good to eat.  (I am not sure teenagers know how that food gets there, they just know it is there).
My question is, where do you go to fill up when you are running out of hope? 
   We all have reached that point when we don't think we can go on any further.  The faith that gets us up out of bed every day just isn't there any more.  The promise that things will change for the better has moved us to where we are but that promise is not there any more.  Where do we go to fill back up so we can keep getting up and moving forward?  It is not something we can buy in a store, and we can not go to a cupboard to refill what is missing.  Can we be re-energized by talking with friends and sharing our discouragement or reading a book or passage that suddenly speaks to our soul and offers us the insight that we needed?  Do we reflect on others whose situations are far worse than our own, because no matter how bad we feel our lot is, there is always someone going through something far worse?  Do we walk into a church and pray that we are infused with all the strength and courage that we seem to be lacking? 
  Recently I found myself feeling hopeless.  Feeling that things are never going to change and that we don't seem to be making any progress become the dominant focus for a time.  This is not the first time I have felt this way and I am certain it will not be the last, as I expect to live a very long life.  I have great sympathy for people who find themselves living with these feelings everyday.  What a sad way to walk around feeling such despair. And for those people I would strongly encourage you to seek a medical professional to get help.  But for someone like me, who likes to think that I have a positive outlook most of the time, it can seem disheartening,  To have a feeling that you have little control and nothing seems to be getting better can feel like swimming against a current that is stronger than you and it just keeps pushing you further back allowing no progress.  Where am I supposed to go to get restocked on all my hope and faith that things are progressing and moving forward. 
    What is the science behind humanity and our need to look forward?  We all want to hope for a bright future and to live happily ever after.  How do we cope when that is not the case?  What makes us get up every day and keep moving in the midst of disaster and distress?  When the most horrific things happen in our lives most of us find a way to get through it and move beyond it, even at times making the best of an awful situation. 
  Where does that power come from?  Why does it ebb like the tides?  Some days feeling like you can conquer the world and other days not wanting to come out from under the covers.  Is it a belief in something greater, a God, something beyond ourselves?  Is it the idea that it can't always be bad?  Is it in knowing that others have made it through difficult times as well? 
   I can not begin to speculate the actual answer.  I am not even sure that there is just one answer.  I do know that even though it may seem bleak and dark one day, it will not stay that way.  Time moves forward, the clock changes as well as the seasons.  Night always becomes day and the sun eventually comes out after a storm.  Life is full of both good and bad and it is in experiencing the bad that we can rejoice in the good and the happiness that it brings.  I get up every day looking at the joy in my life and not focusing on the bad.  I suppose if I always looked for the bad that is all I would see but I have way too many things in my life that bring me joy to focus on the not so good.  That is a choice for me.  Happiness is a choice.and is purposeful.  My children, my husband, my family and friends, my pets, the sun shining or listening to the rain on the roof are my joy and that is where I go to refill my tank.  They give me hope and renew my faith that all is well and live is worth getting up for every morning.