Most of us wait to feel hopeful before we act like it. That is backwards, and it keeps a lot of women waiting for years.
Hope is a practice. You do it before you feel it, the way you set the table before anyone is hungry.
Here is what the practice looks like on an ordinary Tuesday.
You name the thing you are carrying, out loud, to one person who will not flinch. You take one honest step, small enough to finish today. You tell that person you did it.
That is accountability, and it comes first. Healing comes after, and it comes slowly. Wholeness comes last, and it looks like you helping someone else do the same three things.
Accountability, healing, wholeness — in that order. Not because the order is tidy, but because I have watched it go the other way, and it does not hold.
One verse to sit with this week: “Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful.” Hebrews 10:23.
Hold on. That is the whole practice.