Hi Reader,
I'll be honest with you.
The past month has not gone the way I wanted it to.
I've had moments where I feel like nothing is working out.
I've felt frustrated. Overwhelmed.
And some days, I've wanted to hide in bed instead of facing whatever was coming next.
Ever feel like that?
And here's the funny part...
I'm an energy healer.
I'm supposed to help other people work through this stuff.
So what happens when it happens to me?
I meditate.
I don't immediately look outside of myself for answers. I get quiet and try to listen to what's going on inside of me.
And lately, the same message keeps coming up:
Keep a pebble of hope.
The first time I heard it, I actually laughed.
A pebble of hope?
It felt pretty hopeless at the time.
But the message kept coming back.
Even when something feels completely hopeless, your job is to leave a tiny bit of space for the possibility that it isn't.
You don't need a mountain of hope.
You don't even need a handful.
Just a pebble.
And recently, I got a chance to put that into practice.
A little over a month ago, two Great Pyrenees showed up at our farm.
We took them in and they quickly became part of our family.
And then one day...
They took off.
Both of them.
Gone.
I was beside myself.
I wanted to be doing something.
Anything.
Because doing something at least made me feel like I was making progress toward finding them.
But we live in a very rural area.
There aren't many neighbors. There isn't even a local Facebook page where everyone hangs out.
So we did what we could.
We printed flyers and handed them to every neighbor we could find within about three miles.
We posted all over social media.
We drove around.
We searched.
And searched.
And searched.
By the second day, I was starting to lose hope.
Dogs don't just come home after being gone for days...do they?
And then I remembered that silly little message.
Keep a pebble of hope.
At that point, I figured I didn't have much to lose.
So I grabbed a small stone off my dresser and put it in my pocket.
Every time I felt it, I reminded myself:
I don't have to know how this is going to work out.
I just have to leave a little room for hope.
Later that day, our Border Collie, Millie, started barking differently than she normally does.
Something about it caught my attention, so I went outside to see what was going on.
And there he was.
Cato.
One of our Great Pyrenees.
Trotting down the farm toward me like he'd simply decided it was time to come home.
I couldn't believe it.
I kept that pebble in my pocket for the next few days until on Day 5, I got a phone call.
A neighbor heard of a dog that had roamed onto a farm.
His description matched Koda.
And even though it was 6 miles away...I headed over.
And as I pulled into the driveway I was greeted by Koda!
Both dogs are now safe at home.
And no, that little pebble didn't magically bring the dogs home.
But it did something for me while I was waiting.
It reminded me that I had a choice.
I could fill every unknown with the worst possible outcome...
or I could leave a little space for something good to happen, too.
I'd rather carry hope in my heart than decide something is hopeless before I know how the story ends.
So now I want to pass that little message on to you.
Maybe there's an area of your life right now that feels like a complete loss.
Maybe it's something you've been praying for.
Something you've been working toward.
Something you desperately want to change.
Or something you've almost convinced yourself will never happen.
I'm not asking you to pretend everything is fine.
I'm not asking you to somehow muster up a mountain of positivity.
I'm just asking:
Could you leave a pebble-sized space for hope?
That's it.
Keep a pebble of hope.
And maybe even find yourself a little stone to put in your pocket today.
Let it remind you that you don't know how the story ends yet.
xo,