For most of my life, faith and hope were words I heard other people use, but they weren’t real for me. As a child, I suppose I had what some would call a child’s faith, the kind that comes from not yet knowing yet how chaotic the world can be. That innocent faith didn’t last long. When I was seven, my mother remarried an alcoholic, and overnight my world became unpredictable. Trusting anyone felt unreasonable, and hope wasn’t even an option. After all, hope requires some evidence that looking forward won’t reveal a worse nightmare.