A strange thing is memory, and hope; one looks backward, and the other forward; one is of today, the other of tomorrow. Memory is history recorded in our brain, memory is a painter, it paints pictures of the past and of the day. – Grandma Moses
If, as Grandma Moses said, memory is a painter, recording pictures of our past, then hope is a dreamer, imagining exciting new paths for our future. Eventually memory will paint the picture of the path that we have chosen to take.
Hope enables us to look past the darkness of a gloomy or sad situation and see a rainbow on the horizon. I wrote about hope in an earlier post about the four candles – peace, faith love and hope. Hope was the last candle burning and as long as it was still alive the others could be relit. The YouTube video in that post is a good watch.
If you start rummaging around through your memories you might recall some of the hopes that you had at the time when those pictures were painted. How did that work out? Which of your hopes and dreams did you pursue and did they come true? Sometimes an old hope or dream can rekindle a passion that you once had and lead you off into exciting new directions. Maybe you had to delay things for a while, but you don’t necessary have to abandon those dreams. Many times they are actually more reachable now than they might have been years ago.
My wife had a dream of finishing college (I interrupted her academic life with my proposal) and, after raising our two children, she finally went back to school and a couple of years later got to walk across the stage and accept her degree. She never gave up her hope to one day accomplish that goal and she did. She also rediscovered the joy of learning. Are there still unrealized hopes hanging around somewhere in your head 
that you still have time to pursue? What’s holding you back?
So, take a quiet moment sometime soon and revisit your old hopes and dreams. Some of them you may now realize just weren’t right for you; but many of them might just have been put on hold, due to life circumstances. Drag them out, dust them off and see if they still excite you. If they do, then go for it. Find the way to stick with them this time and make them come true. Then you’ll have some great memories to paint pictures of in your later years.
Have a great and hopeful day.
NormsMilfordBlog 
[…] four had been extinguished in my post about the Four Candles. I also wrote about it in posts titled Hope Leads to Great Memories and my post, Don’t Worry, Be […]