When Your Hopes Are Flatter Than a Pancake

When I was in Italy last summer, I saw several abandoned properties during my walking and boating tours and they captured my fancy. 

There was a villa under legal dispute, a stone farmhouse empty and covered with vines yet with a perfectly mowed lawn right down to edge of the lake, and an archway that once led to somewhere lovely but now opened onto a field of weeds.

I wondered about their histories and how they got to their ramshackle conditions. It was hard to tell if they’d been like that for decades or centuries. 

When I see crumbling and ramshackle places, it's easy to imagine a story for myself in their settings. 

I’d be the heroine {of course}, moving to Italy to buy the abandoned farm, renovate the property {with the help of a handyman} and bring the house back to life. 

In my own story, I’d also meet the handsome but churlish neighbor or cranky village bachelor and in time I’d win his heart.

Then we’d happily turn the old homestead into an olive farm with a few goats to make our own cheese. {Cue book deal and romantic comedy movie script.} 

Oh and then we'd open an inn on our farm so a host of hilarious guests would provide plenty of content for future books and movies.

Maybe you've crafted a storyline too but like me, you realize that our lives rarely unfold like a Hollywood movie. 

I don't know about you, but I feel less like a heroine and more like those old houses sometimes. 

I find myself in desperate need of a change, especially on the inside. I'd like those old vines that are choking the life out of me with my mundane routine, rooted up and ripped out. 

And some fresh color on my tired and chipped exterior wouldn't hurt either. 

Do I really want to have the bricks continue to crumble and the weeds to overgrow and the paint to peel after I look back and see how far God has lovingly nudged me to the edges of what I thought I could ever do and faithfully summoned me to places I never dreamed I could go?

So when you want to give up because your hopes are squashed, could I ever so kindly whisper to your heart to do just one thing more?

Flip the pancake.

My nine-year-old niece told me I’d lost my mojo for making pancakes. 

The last few times I've made them, she hasn't liked them and we've gone out for donuts instead. 

Truthfully, my pancakes are nothing special. They're just from a mix in a plastic yellow jug that I add some chocolate chips to, but my niece says I make the best pancakes.

It always makes me laugh.

But last Saturday morning, she told me to give it one more try. I made the pancakes the way I always have and flipped one onto the Paris plate she always eats her pancakes on when she visits my house.

She raised her eyebrows and took a bite.

"Yep," she said. "These are as good as they used to be."

Now that I've gotten my pancake groove back, this very small, most insignificant thing has renewed my faith for the days ahead. 

If you're going through something hard or sad or difficult, do the tiniest, most minuscule thing you can think of to give your hope a fighting chance. 

It might be enough to lift your head so your eyes can glimpse that stunning vista off in the distance. 

I'm having coffee with my friends at Holley Gerth's place at Coffee for your Heart. Join me there for more encouraging posts from my blogger friends!