🛍
I bought something at a particular athletic clothing store.

The bag said, “Hope is not a strategy.”

I get what they are saying.
If you want to exercise then just hoping that you will exercise is not going to cut it.
If you want to eat healthy then just hoping that you’ll eat healthy isn’t going to make it happen.

But I still have to disagree with my bag.

Coleman and I went to Lagoon, a local amusement park, with our friends.
I had never seen the Sky Coaster.
Coleman and two of the older Giauque teenagers waited in line for over an hour to ride this thing together.
They strap you to a harness in the standing position.
Pull you up to a crazy height.
Then you free fall.
And start swinging a couple of hundred feet in the air.
What the....?????😱

This is exactly opposite of what I would choose to do. Heights freak me out.
I could see Coleman biting his lip and shuffling from one foot to the other as they strapped on the harnesses and cracked jokes and waited for the people in front of them to take their turn.
He was freaked out, too.
But then he did it.

Coleman is two feet shorter than Cody and one foot shorter than Dallin.
They put Cody, the big guy, in the middle.
As they swung, Cody got squished by the outside guys.

Coleman swung by and I heard him shout, “Let’s gooooo!!!”

He said that the Sky Coaster was the best moment of his life!😂

People often asked Jason and I, “How do you do it? How do you stay happy with all of your challenges?”

I think that our way is probably similar to your way, too.

We had hope.
We knew that this life has a purpose.
We knew that we were meant to have trials and adversity so that we could learn things.
We knew we were meant to overcome and endure those same challenges.
We knew that they wouldn’t last forever.

And we knew that we are meant to be happy in the middle of it all. That gave us hope.

We are kind of like those three boys on the Sky Coaster.
One boy represents our grief.
One boy represents our hard things.
But the big guy, the guy in the middle, is hope.
Sharing space with the difficulties that press in on every side.
Standing stall, hanging on, anchoring us in the moments of free fall.
Keeping us strong as we swing back and forth from high point to low point.

Hope coexists with our challenges.
Happiness lives right next to our grief.
Joy is possible, even in the middle of hard things.

Hope is the big guy in the middle and my bag from that athletic store is wrong.

Hope is actually our ultimate strategy.💙✊🏻

(But even with some hope along for the ride, you’ll still probably not see me ride the Sky Coaster!😉)