Sometimes a grief like storm-wind sweeps away
All the words I found to bring to you
I shake helpless, silent as a corpse
'Be happy' you say 'Now you are nothing'
~ Jalal-ud-Din Rumi in A YEAR WITH RUMI
Hope is the foundation or beginning step of faith and an essential expression of love. It provides the formless general aspiration for that which is higher and better, and then faith fills out the picture with the specific shape that a better self or a better world would take. As the expression of love, it sends that image out to the loved one and to the universe. By hoping you are taking an active part in the process by which the present creates the future.