Now that 2010 has come to a frayed end, many wonder how to regather the seams of their lives and construct "a garment of praise."

When you've lost your home, your job, your  savings, and even loved ones, the fabric of your life—once carefully stitched like a patchwork quilt—has become unraveled, and many of the patches lost.

What of Faith? Faith then becomes evasive and aloof. Friends and family members reach out with colloquial inspiration, "you just have to have faith." And somewhere in our process analysis and critical thinking skills, we mutter that notion in the quietness of our minds.

Then, we rededicate ourselves to our faith (spiritual or religious beliefs)– attending  services, praying, fasting and cathartic writing and recording in our journals– yet, faith has failed to satiate us. Where is your faith? Where is my faith? They ask, I ask, we ask, but to no avail. We, I, you, they, stand in the quick sand of 2010 desperately trying to step into the new year, trying even to look forward to its eminent arrival.

The brooding sounds of "Happy New Year" occupy our thoughts, and like a Scrooge prototype we "bah, humbug" that notion of the year of 2011 being happy.

Apostle Paul said, "Faith is the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen." Aha! That's it, 'the substance of things hoped for.' This is to say, faith can not precede hope nor be devoid of hope.

In essence, Hope is the prerequisite of Faith.  Hence, we must have something in mind that we want, that we desire, that we pray for; albeit, clearly we do not have it, nor foresee it. Nonetheless, we need the substance of it in our minds (just in our minds first).

You see, hopelessness is when we put all of our energy and attention into everything in 2010 that went awry, or everything in our lifetime that has gone awry. From this past-focusing fixation, we lose hope in possibility. We surmise that nothing will ever work out or work in our favor. The trauma from the impact of loss has numbed hope. Thus, one wonders what there is  to look forward to. There can be no attainment of faith, when one has nothing in mind—no substance—to have faith in.

Don't let hope be lost! Grab a hold of something  (in your thought life) that you want.  Don't suppress the substance of your thoughts to want. Though you can't see it, or even fathom that it could ever be, hold on to it anyway. Dream about it anyway; desire it anyway. Hope for it!

This is what faith is, 'the substance of things hoped for.' We may not have world peace, but I'm going to hope for it anyway. We may not have universal love, but I'm going to hope for it anyway. We may not have totally eradicated racism, degradation and homelessness, but I'm going to hope for it anyway.  And, "with this faith," Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said, "we will be able hue out of a mountain of despair, a stone of hope."

Hope begets and first requires faith because faith is birthed out of the substance of what we desire. Don't be hopeless. Hold on to what you want. Let Hope be ignited. I bid you all, Austell-Mabelton, on the frayed hems of 2010, threads of hope for 2011.