This past week, our family has been overwhelmed by an outpouring of love, kindness, prayers, and support. The messages have come from friends, neighbors, business associates, complete strangers, and people we haven’t spoken to in years. We have read every one of them, and each has reminded us that even in the darkest moments, there is still extraordinary goodness in this world. One comment has surfaced again and again. “I’m amazed at how hopeful your family is after losing everything.” The truth is, that hope is not accidental. It is intentional. At the very center of our family are a handful of values that we’ve chosen to live by. They aren’t just words framed on a wall. They are agreements we’ve made with one another about who we will become and how we will respond when life doesn’t go according to plan. One of those values is simple:  Hope Drippers.

Last night my heart shattered. My wife and I are currently sailing through Denmark, honoring the ancestors who sacrificed everything so our family could enjoy the freedoms and opportunities we have today. Two days ago, a small fire started outside my hometown of Beaver, Utah. We watched from thousands of miles away as it exploded into nearly 70,000 acres in less than forty-eight hours, racing directly toward our family’s legacy cabin. Yesterday we received the news we had been dreading. Our family’s legacy cabin burned to the ground.

This week pushed me physically, mentally, and emotionally. Four to five hours of sleep. Thirty to forty thousand steps a day. New environments, unfamiliar situations, and plenty of moments where I found myself running on fumes. High emotional stakes, big personalities, and abundant opportunities for meltdown only added to the mix, making me realize just how easy it is to slip from experiencing pain into creating suffering around it.

You’re such an idiot!” Joey screamed as he ripped another golf ball deep into the hazard on the right side of the fairway for what felt like the fourth time. “Idiot. Stupid. What the heck are you doing?” The words came flying out of him in frustration. We were all hot, tired, sweaty, exhausted, and emotionally ragged. We’d been playing golf for days straight, grinding through some of the best courses in the country. The truth is, our fragile biological machines simply weren’t wired to perform at peak levels indefinitely. Fatigue eventually catches all of us. But it wasn’t the golf ball that caught my attention. It was the words. The harshness of them pierced me because, if I’m honest, that was me for much of my life.

Six days. 198 holes of golf. Eleven courses. Eight of the top twenty-five public golf courses in America and three of the top ten. Five hours of sleep a night, blistered feet, spasming backs, bruised egos, and by the end of each day, two middle-aged brothers wondering what in the world we had signed up for. And yet, it was one of the most expansive, soul-stretching weeks I can remember. My brother Brett had just smashed a golf ball into a thirty-mile-an-hour crosswind on the ninth hole at Erin Hills, one of the most brutally unforgiving holes in American golf. For one breathless moment the shot looked like it might be the stuff of legend. Then the crosswind grabbed it, whipped it sideways, and what could have been the shot of the century came up just short, kissed the front edge of the green, took one cruel bounce, and rolled straight into a bunker designed personally by Satan himself. We both groaned. After nearly a week of battling some of the most punishing courses in America, it felt like one more cruel joke from the golf gods.  As we walked toward the bunker, I watched Brett do what he has done his entire life. He stayed with it. No complaining. No excuses. Just the quiet, stubborn determination to face whatever came next.

This weekend, I participated in a service project organized by my local religious community in support of another local religious institution. It was a beautiful practice of interfaith service. Hundreds of individuals showed up with work gloves, shovels, rakes, wheelbarrows, and bright smiles, ready to help. There was a lightness and excitement in the air that was almost tangible. You could feel the goodness. People had carved out time from their busy lives and simply shown up to serve. Then before we began, everyone was invited to gather together for a large group picture intended for media and social media purposes. For a brief moment, something subtly shifted.