rb31daysdeephope

“Hope is a combination of setting goals, having the tenacity and perseverance to pursue them and believing in our own abilities.”

~ Brene Brown, The Gifts of Imperfection

I remember 1987 as the year of desperation. It was also the year I graduated from college.

Working part-time as a hostess in a restaurant to pay for tuition, I realized I was employed by the primary industry keeping the economy alive in Tulsa, Oklahoma during a severe economic downturn.  Juggling long days of classes and homework, I walked miles over the same stretch of tile and carpet; seating people at tables and cleaning up after them, while most people slept at night.

It was the year Oral Roberts locked himself in the prayer tower, refusing to come down until he raised one million dollars. His antics kept newspaper reporters busy and recruiters away from his university campus. I was a senior that year, looking for a job in Marketing.

I guess we were all pretty desperate.

Oral cancelled our graduation speaker and inserted himself behind the podium at the last minute, despite pushback from students. He used a day of celebration for hundreds as the pulpit for another sales speech. After all, he had a captive audience.

I sat on the front row fuming red-faced, wagging my blue patent leather shoe over my leg like a mallet hitting a base drum, the golden tassel hanging from my cap swinging in tandem. High above in the rafters, the charade on stage gave my father confirmation. Evidence about why he chose not to pay for my college education. I was indeed attending a school “like that.”

That’s when hope kicked in.

Today it’s my turn to post on my column, Living the Story at BibleDude.net. Join me here for the rest of the story, I’ll meet you there in the comments.

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This is day 7 of 31 Days of Letting Go in the Deep End, a series dedicated to chart the path towards the practice of  truly loving ourselves the way Jesus does. To find out more, click the button below or this link and add your email address to the Subscribe box in the sidebar so you don’t miss a thing.