A woman met a man on the street who looked destitute. She slipped a dollar into his hand and whispered, \u201cNever despair.\u201d A few days later, the man met the woman and slipped nine dollars into her hand. \u201cHere\u2019s your winnings,\u201d he whispered. \u201cMy winnings?\u201d she asked.\u00a0
The man was a bookie. The horse \u201cNever Despair\u201d came in first, paying 8 to 1.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I\u2019m not really sure why I thought of this old story, but I think it may have been because a few days ago, I looked up \u201chope,\u201d when that was the topic for this blog. Several of the references I found also mentioned despair. So guess what \u2014 today\u2019s topic is going to be despair.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
During my lifetime, I\u2019ve heard \u201cnever despair\u201d a number of times, and it wasn\u2019t referring to a horse.\u00a0
Never despair \u2014 one of those things that\u2019s easier said than done. When I ran across despair when I was looking for hope, I suspect it\u2019s because despair is probably one of the major challenges to hope.\u00a0In fact, it\u2019s defined as \u201cthe complete absence of hope.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In Dante\u2019s The Devine Comedy<\/em>, the inscription to the entrance to Hell reads, \u201cAbandon hope, all ye who enter here.\u201d So according to Dante, despair is the essence of Hell.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And in the musical Les Miserables<\/em>, there\u2019s a song, sung by a dying woman (Fantine) who has been crushed by virtually every unfairness that life can deal a person\u2026 So what is despair, really? I looked it up and it comes from a Latin word meaning \u201cto be without hope.\u201d\u00a0 I think despair is an especially lonely emotion \u2014 it\u2019s a burden too heavy to share with someone else. If you\u2019re able to truly share the burden, you\u2019re likely to stop short of despair. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Despair is the acceptance of what happens without an active response or resistance along with that loneliness. And of course, despair, like grief, comes uninvited \u2014 it\u2019s never chosen. The only thing that can be done is try to end it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Today, November 6, 2024, I think I\u2019ve arrived at the door of despair \u2014 I\u2019ve arrived at the threshold of \u201cthe complete absence of hope.\u201d Don\u2019t get me wrong, I haven\u2019t thrown in the towel \u2014 I\u2019m just going to have to recalculate and realize that my journey back to normalcy is going to be a long, tough road. A woman met a man on the street who looked destitute. She slipped a dollar into his hand and whispered, \u201cNever despair.\u201d A few days later, the man met the woman and slipped nine dollars into her hand. \u201cHere\u2019s your … Continue reading
But there are dreams that cannot be<\/em>
And there are storms we cannot weather<\/em>
I had a dream my life would be<\/em>
So much different from this hell I\u2019m living<\/em>
So different now from what it seemed<\/em>
Now life has killed<\/em>
The dream I dreamed.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n
But I\u2019ve heard it said that God doesn\u2019t give us more than we can handle. The Bible even tells us that those who are broken will enter the Kingdom of Heaven before the rich, the strong, and the powerful.
So\u2026. maybe a crisis is not necessarily a bad thing \u2014 but despair seems to be the bottom \u2014 someone in despair has not only lost hope, but decided the pain of the current situation is intolerable, and there is no prospect for a better future, or better days. That\u2019s a little different than resignation \u2014 if someone resigns himself to the circumstances, he can accept the hand he\u2019s been dealt \u2014 maybe grudgingly \u2014 but he can go on. But despair creates the sense that the cross of life has become too heavy to bear, and there\u2019s just not enough of a fight left to go on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2014 30 \u2014<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"