Hey team--
So, I know that it's been a super long time since I last wrote. I looked at the date on the last post: April 2013. That was over a year ago, in case you didn't want to do the math. I don't blame you because I don't like doing math either. It's one of the reasons I picked political science as a major.
But I'm getting off point, as I so often do. This past Sunday was Mother's Day. As is often the case, I was called on to speak in Church. Seriously, this has happened, like, each year for the past four years. I've had at least 4 different bishops in four different wards in that time. What brain wavelength are they all transmitting on?! Do they pass that along with my information from one ward to the next? "This is Luke. He won't tell you that he plays the piano, but he does. Also, he makes a great Mother's Day speaker." It's crazy. Even my mom noticed when I told her about it.
So, because it was Mother's Day, I decided to tell my whole ward how awesome my mom is. She's pretty awesome. My ward got more details than you're all getting (#sorrynotsorry). Even so, the main topic of my talk was hope, and how my mom taught me to hope.
I imagine you're all thinking something along these lines: "Luke hopes? Really?" I don't blame you. I've had a lot of people tell me I lack hope or I hate life or something equally negative (I'm looking at you, Logan; also at my NH girls). I'll give that to you. I'm often a negative person. I often lack hope. There, I'm out.
The point was that my mom has taught me so much about hope in the past 5-or-so years of my life. My problem was that I just didn't realize it at the time. Hindsight is 20-20, right? True story.
Giving the talk on Sunday really opened my eyes to that. I learned that hope is more than just a wish or desire: it's a very real trust that I depend on. I learned that while I bemoan my mistakes and beat myself up for them, I do know that I can change. I can hope to become better because I know in whom I have trusted. I have placed my trust in God. Any higher power would do, but I choose God because I know the most about Him. And because I place that trust in Him, I can hope for a better world, a better life for myself and for others.
I learned all that because my mom challenged me to learn. Could I have learned it on my own? Yeah. Would I have? Maybe. It's not certain either way.
Probably more powerful is my mom's own example of hope. When she was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2011, I was terrified. "She can't die," I thought. "What would I do? How would I go on?" In my mind, she wasn't going to die. That wasn't faith or trust in God, though; that was my inability to conceive of such a thing happening. My mom was different. The only thing she worried about was losing her hair. Period. And even that she pulled off gracefully. She always told me that even though she never felt like it was her time, everything would work out in the end.
It took me awhile, but I eventually caught on. She had that trust in God that allowed her to hope for a life without cancer, even a life with her hair back. She got that life (both of them), but that's not the point. The point is that she didn't experience fear or sadness for as long as I did. Her hope pulled her through.
That's something that will stick with me for a long time. Hope is such a powerful thing. It motivates us to be better while at the same time anchoring us to something solid for when times are hard. It is through hope that I can overcome my own weaknesses and make a better life for myself and those around me.
And it was my mom who taught me that.
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