Lord God, won’t you bless this lottery ticket I bought today? Bless it Lord with your generous hand and grant me the blessing of being able to live a new way of life. I can’t recall any special deeds I made to be deserving of what I ask and I know I missed Sunday masses quite a number of times but I desire to come to you now and ask this special favor. You are the only one who can grant my prayers, the only one who can listen to my pleas and deliver me from my sins. Lord, some people say that this is not a good way to reach one’s dreams, to improve one’s life. People say that those who buy these tickets are those who want to harvest what they didn’t sow, get paid for a fortune they havent worked for. They say that the people who buy these tickets are lazy good-for-nothing people who are already desperate in the kind of lives they live.
Lord, I am not lazy but I am indeed desperate and I really need your help. I do not pray so I can have an easy life. I do not pray for the luxuries I never dreamt of having, such things are too much for me, they are too complicated for a simple man like me. But I do pray for another life Lord, the kind of decent life I want to give my loved ones. I want to give my children bread to eat when they are hungry, clothes when they are cold. I want to send them to school and be educated, be different from their father who did not even finish grade school. I want them to have good company, away from the gangsters that lurk the streets that they walk. I want to build them a home, a roof that won’t easily give way when it storms, a bed long enough so they can stretch their backs when they sleep. I want to take them away from the heaps of garbage they scavenge from day to day just to bring home extra money for their sick mother.
Help me Lord, for you are my only hope! I’ve worked so hard since I was twelve, yet no amount of work it seems can ever take my family away from here. I wish I knew another way. Had I orly known it, I would have done it and never given up. But I do not know such a way. The things I could think of are not so much, not enough to provide the needs of my family. But I know of your Greatness O God and I have heard of your miracles. I know you are close to the poor and to the simple-minded like me. Help me Lord and show me the way. Save us and have mercy on us for there is nothing impossible for you to do!
The thing about hope is that it’s a positive force that shines the most when it’s dark. When everything’s going well, we hardly notice it’s there. But when things go against us, when our dreams fade and when we see no immediate reprieve from our troubles, that’s when hope does its best work for us.
"Where Hope Can Be Found"