Choosing hope over fear

As I sat and watched the Inauguration of our 44th President today, I reflected on the words our our new President and the overall theme of his message. I was encouraged and inspired by his words and his determination, not to tell the people of America that ‘everything would be okay’ or that ‘things are not as bad as they seem’, but instead, the admonition to the American people to “choose hope over fear”.

Choosing hope over fear is not easy in time of uncertainty. It is not simple when jobs are being lost, when children are starving, when families are broken. It is not easy when there is pain and strife within the borders of our nation. When hatred and greed are tolerated, when corruption is overlooked.

President Obama’s appeal to the American was plain: “greatness is never a given, it must be earned.”

America became great not from an ideal or concept, not a wish or a flimsy creed, but from the sweat and work of those who fought and labored to be great. Those who, “struggled, sacrificed and worked until their hands were raw. America was bigger than the sum of our individual ambitions”. America’s greatness came from men and women that met challenges head on. In the face of despair and defeat, they chose hope over fear. We must do the same.

Their is no limit to “what free men and women can achieve when imagination is joined with purpose” as President Obama has now said. That when we choose hope over fear, to move forward instead of retreat, to embrace love rather than violence, we find that, “our spirit is stronger and cannot be broken”.