Hope Can Get You a Long Way - episode 103
She has a strong faith and is not afraid to share it. The emphasis being on love, Rae O’Rourke has been navigating a difficult health diagnosis. She has sought, and learned, quite a bit a long the way. So much so that now she would like to share with others who might need tools and encouragement that have helped her.
I enjoyed reconnecting with Rae. I would say she is the picture of health: radiant, joyful, grateful. Her purpose has become clearer as she merges it with her passion, remembering to have grace for others including herself. And Rae knows hope can get you a long way. Just ask her. She is living proof.
Encourager. Optimistic. Fighter.
— Rae O’Rourke
Come Together
Thoughts from Hope Can Get You a Long Way
Yes, hope can get you a long way. I am wondering how much hope the Ukrainians have right now. I know the world over we are grieving with them as they experience so much devastation. Truly there aren’t words to convey the depth of their loss. The constant fear they must be living in! I have to imagine they are holding tightly to hope. I’d like to think I would do the same in their position. May it be over soon. May nothing like this happen again. (That is a ridiculously tall order I realize.)
I do want to point out some of the good things that keep me hoping. The first one was I saw a picture of empty strollers lined up at some kind of outdoor area. It seems Polish women organized a way to help Ukranian families who would be making their way into Poland to escape the war. More than one million so far have made their way, mostly women and children, because the men have stayed behind to fight. Incredible. I am deeply moved by the thoughtfulness of this gesture.
The strollers on the train platforms in Poland are a symbol of what women know about war and their place in it.
— Monica Hesse, Columnist Washington Post
The second thing was a friend sent me a video. It was of thousands of men on their knees in the middle of the street. As the camera panned out it was clear they were praying. It turns out they were praying the rosary for Ukraine, for the people, for their pain. They were joining the world’s desperate hope for peace. It you get a chance google it Men's rosary rally in Warsaw . It is one of the most beautiful things in the wake of tragedy I have ever seen. Writing that sentence brought me back to the tears I felt the first, second, third and fourth time I saw it. The power. The intention. The gesture.
And finally the way the majority of the world has come together in wanting peace. We don’t understand the reasons for this war, why it was waged (it makes no sense), and why it continues into four weeks and counting. We are sick, heartbroken, angry, and confused all at the same time. Yet in these things we think, and feel, we are united in a way we haven’t been in a long time, and that is something. I’ll call that hope.
