I keep finding myself at intersections of hope and reality.  

Reality is detailed and obvious. We are reality seekers.  Its almost all we talk about and look for.  Like the little Google Earth cars supporting their 360 degree cameras driving around town digitizing every last portion of the planet, so we long to take pictures and log all the "real" difficulties and challenges.  Reality's road is thoroughly mapped and charted.  

Hope, on the other hand, I cannot quite explain.  I feel it somewhere inside of me.  Like a faint trail weaving in and out of the pine trees, moving me toward some final destination of resolution just beyond the mountain ridge.  But, I cannot see it.  Yet.

And the intersections keep coming.  I keep taking the hope route.  

It is difficult.  This isn't a self-pitying statement made while resting at one of these intersections.  Honestly.  It's just difficult.  Hope is always more challenging than reality.  Not to suggest I haven't been self-pitying before.  I have. It's when I find myself thinking something like, "I don't deserve this difficulty."  But the truth is, I really don't know what I deserve.  And the older I get the more I suspect the undeserved way is the one full of grace.  If all roads were fair grace (or hope) wouldn't be needed. 

And the intersections keep coming.  I keep opting for hope.

Hope is my reality.