HOPE!

The well-known maxim, "While there is life there is hope," has a deeper meaning in reverse:  "While there is hope there is life."

Hope comes first, life follows.  Hope gives power to life.  Hope rouses life to continue, to expand, to grow, to reach out, to go on.

Hope sees a light where there isn't any.

Hope lights candles in millions of despairing hearts.

Hope is the miracle medicine of the mind.  It inspires the will to live.  Hope is the physician's strongest ally.

Hope is our shield and buckler against defeat.

"Hope," wrote Alexander Pope, "springs eternal in the human breast."  And as long as it does we will triumph and move forward.

Hope never sounds retreat.  Hope keeps the banners flying.

Hope revives ideals, renews dreams, revitalizes visions.

Hope scales the peak, wrestles with the impossible, achieves the highest aim.

"The word which God has written on the brow of every person," wrote Victor Hugo, "is Hope."  As long as we have hope no situation is hopeless.

                                                                                                          Wilferd A. Peterson