Hope. It is simply one of the most amazing words there is. It flies into the capricious face of loss, pain and tragedy and says, "This is not the end."
Hope gives us reason to live, a reason to hold on through our painful and sometimes seemingly pointless circumstances, it is a knowing that there must be something at the end. Hope is seeing through the eyes of faith that there is indeed a point to all this, though at present the darkness may be so thick we can barely see a foot in front of us...
Hope goes beyond our current circumstances and believes against all odds that the situation, no matter how dire, how bleak, how painful, unfair or evil, that it WILL NOT have the final say.