"Deep grief sometimes is almost like a specific location, a coordinate on a map of time. When you are standing in that forest of sorrow, you cannot imagine that you could ever find your way to a better place. But if someone can assure you that they themselves have stood in that same place, and now have moved on, sometimes this will bring hope” ~ Elizabeth Gilbert

It seems likely to me that every human being has sometime been in a forest of sorrow. When we are in such a place, although we may not sense of it, hope is right there, present within us.

Hope then is like a seed planted underground. It may seem tiny, lifeless, and buried; but it's alive and ready for the sun's warming to draw it open, upward, through the crust of soil, and into the light of a new day, toward growth and blooming.

For all who are in a forest of sorrow now, may they sense, at the right and perfect time, that a path to other places is near. 

Let's send love and offer compassion to all who are grieving. Let's encourage all.  

Toward hope,
Charlene,

THE FIFTH GIFT IS HOPE: Through each passage and season may you trust the goodness of life. - from The Twelve Gifts of Birth