Centuries before Christ, a Greek philosopher named Thales said, "The most universal thing is hope, for hope stays with those who have nothing else."  In a period of time when everything was changing, in a period of tremendous personal loss, the Apostle Paul penned the inspiring words, "And now these things remain:  faith, hope and love..." (1 Corinthians 13:13).  The second of these qualities, hope, is to life what oxygen is to breathing.  Where there is hope, there is life.  And when hope dies, life itself begins to ebb away.