HOPE

Hope Painting

I love to feel hopeful.  Hope gives meaning to the mysteries of life.  Hope defines my relationship with God, because with God, all things are possible, and without Him, all things seem hopeless--the hopeless situation . . . the hopeless relationship . . . the hopeless world we live in . . . hopelessness can be re-defined by a HOPE that only God can provide through his son, Jesus Christ.  My hope is an eternal hope, for which I am grateful.

Romans 8:24-25 For in this hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.
Hebrews 11:1  Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.

The following is a commentary to accompany the above painting, which I found at:  http://www.daydaypaint.com/blog/tag/famous-portrait-paintings

This painting is named Hope. Hope is one of the most mysterious and arresting paintings from any age – a blindfolded woman astride a globe, plucking at a remaining single string, when all the others have snapped – an image once seen, never forgotten. Whilst its composition is simple and iconic, its atmosphere is heavy with emotive meaning. It was reputedly painted at a moment of anguish, when the daughter of G. F. Watts’s adopted daughter Blanche died.
This mood is not entirely absent in the painting and G. K. Chesterton wrote that the first thought on anyone seeing it is that it should be called Despair. But the title given it by the artist suggests something quite different; it suggests optimism. It is, in fact, Hope in Despair. An evocation of the human condition; the ability of people, at their lowest point to sense and feel a strand, a single string of hope that keeps them going, when all around is failing.