Life is a difficult affair, and it always asks more from us than we want to give. 

I saw this picture and immediately it arrested me. 

Here is a person charred inside and out, near the end, but still clutching to the very things that caused her agony. Who among us cannot relate? 

Hopelessness causes us to clutch the familiar and fear the unknown change. 

Our hope, the only hope, is in "God, who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist".