For some of us, hope is an easy enough thing to lose. Emily Dickinson says that “‘Hope’ is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul,” but her famous poem goes on to say that it would take quite a storm to stop the bird from singing its endless song. I don’t see it that way.

Birds are skittish creatures. I feel like her first phrase gets it right: Hope is a thing with feathers that perches in the soul. But I think the rest of the poem may get it wrong. Hope is easily scared away, as any bird is.

A few years ago now, I was living beyond hope. I had no expectation of good; it was all just bad to worse, and then some. One morning in the dark, long before sunrise, a bird started singing. It felt like a promise. There is no deeper despair than 4 a.m. despair. You’ve survived the whole night long, but morning is still a long way off. Life feels like that sometimes, and it sure did to me then.

In that same season of life, a friend had said to me, “I see you have no hope, but I have some. Would you mind if I hold onto hope for you?” And I said yes, please do.

Sometimes hope flies away. In Isaiah 49 it says, “Then you will know that I am the Lord; those who hope in me will not be disappointed.” But the thing is, God does disappoint us sometimes, doesn’t he? He’s in it for the long haul, but we are often focused on the shorter term. So disappointment comes, and if it comes big enough and loud enough and long enough, it can chase away that thing with feathers and we are left with no song in our heart at all.

I have hope now. And it’s like this picture, a dandelion, eager to send its seeds, even in the frozen ground covered by snow. But life has changed. The circumstances that had me in a chokehold no longer do. And it’s that relief that has made a place for my hope to return, to grow even in the frozen ground.

Hopelessness can be survived, but I think it helps to have some people carry you through it. It’s an awfully dark place, and it’s hard to find your way out, or to wait it out alone. If your hope has flown away, I hope you can somehow hear that bird singing from a perch you can’t see, somewhere in the dark.