Darling Letters: Thoughts on Hope and Beauty

We are bringing “Darling Letters” from your inbox to the blog! We love the art of letter writing and believe it helps build authentic community. Our editors and contributors have thoughtfully written encouraging letters to cut through the busyness and speak straight to your heart.

If I were to paint the last couple of weeks with a color, it would be the darkest slate grey—the tone that the ocean turns right before a storm in the night. Pain, anger, hatred, violence and loss have permeated our country. 

In times like these, healing words provide temporary comfort, but don’t do justice; facts bring understanding, but don’t mend; solutions are presented, but complications remain. In these hard places, the future is blurry. It’s almost impossible to envision our reality changing or goodness actually coming.  

It’s almost impossible to envision our reality changing or goodness actually coming.  

Why is it that being told to “hope” can seem so trite? Perhaps the word is overused, perhaps we’ve been disappointed by hope, or perhaps we don’t quite understand its power. Regardless of our relationship with hope, I believe we can reclaim it in a new way this week. 

I’m a firm believer that hope is our greatest form of resistance to the brokenness in the world. It is the source of our strength, the springboard of our optimism and the driver of true change. Without it, our imaginations are powerless—and imagination, well, it’s everything. “Seeing” a new reality in our mind’s eye and striving for it through our thoughts, words and actions is at the heart of hope. 

I’m a firm believer that hope is our greatest form of resistance to the brokenness of the world.

On this Monday leading up to the Easter holiday, let’s focus on the overarching message of Easter—that we live in a broken and dark world, but that light does come. Not always in the right timing, but it does appear, in big and small ways, if we have the eyes to see it. 

With hope,
Sarah Dubbeldam, Darling Founder 

What does hope for the future look like in your mind’s eye? How can you reclaim hope this week in one practical way?

Image via Raisa Zwart Photography