Hope for Faith

Hope. Just as overwhelming a word as my very name, Faith. Both seem to be required to hold on to either concept. I can't hope without faith, and well, faith without hope doesn't seem to really be any sort of faith worth having. 

As I struggle with monstrous personal internal demons I have found that I despise my very name. In that realization, I have discovered it is because I have let go of the hope of ever living up to the profoundness of my name. My name comes with deep and weighted expectations of spiritual greatness. A greatness that I seem to fall short of and fear will never fulfill. 

I cannot understand why I was given such a grand name. I realize that both my mother and father must have had some of their own reasons, reasons that to me, really do not help me with my struggle. Because regardless of their reasons, Faith is now mine. It is not theirs. I must struggle to sort it out. I must find the faith to hope that one day I will be all that I am meant to be and that my name will not have been attached to me in vain.

This struggle with my name is at the center of my struggle with who I am and who I want to be. Who I am ashamed of and who I hope I can forgive one day. Each day I dip down into the depths of deep and dark valleys of hopelessness driven by intense feelings of abandonment; by God, by family and friends. In this state of paralysis I have come to realize that I must push through and not abandon myself. I have been abandoning myself for years now, neglecting my needs and desires and wants...wishing and hoping that others would do for me, feel for me, and give to me what only I can give to myself.

Though others can hope for me, their hopes are theirs. I must grab hold of hope and not let it go. It must permeate my deepest self and give me room to grieve and cry and then to forgive.

I hope this blog will allow me to express those feelings...openly and honestly. Sometimes with such a rare rawness that it may be offensive, however, hope is not always pretty. In fact, I would venture to say that hope is found in the ugliest and darkest places of the human soul and psyche...at least, that I think is where my hope is and where I must go to come out on the other side with a hope that is laced with joy and beauty.