To go the way of hope…takes life on its own terms, knows that whatever happens God lives in it, and expects that, whatever its twists and turns, it will ultimately yield its good to those who live it consciously, to those who live it to the hilt.

Hope is not a matter of waiting for things outside of us to get better. It is about getting better inside about what is going on outside. It is about becoming open to the God of Newness. It is about allowing ourselves to let go of the present, to believe in the future we cannot see but trust to God. Surrendering to the demands of the moment, holding on when holding on seems pointless, brings us to that point of personal transformation which is the juncture of maturity and sagacity. Then, whatever the circumstances, however hard the task, the struggles of life may indeed shunt us from mountain top to mountain top but they will not destroy us.

Life is not one road. It is many roads, the walking of which provides the raw material out of which we become hope in the midst of despair. Every dimension of the process of struggle is a call to draw from a well of new understandings. It is in those that hope dwells. It is that wisdom that carries us beyond the dark night of struggle to the dawn of new wisdom and new strength.

— Excerpt from MESSAGE by Joan Chittister (2003)