Signs of Hope We Almost Missed:
What If We Add Our Hope, Too?

by Rev. Sheri Spiritual teacher, writer, and founder of Angel Messenger

The world can feel very heavy.

There is no shortage of stories telling us what is broken, frightening, divided, or uncertain. Those stories matter. We shouldn’t pretend suffering isn’t happening simply because we’d rather focus on something happier.

But suffering is not the only thing happening.

All around us, people are healing, helping, restoring, discovering, protecting, rebuilding and trying again.

Sometimes, we just have to look a little harder to see it.

For this edition of Signs of Hope We Almost Missed, I want to try something a little different.

What if we don’t simply notice the good news?

What if we add our intention to it?

When something beautiful happens somewhere in the world, perhaps we can stop for a moment and hold it in our hearts. We can pray over it. We can imagine that little spark of hope growing larger.

Not because our thoughts magically caused what happened, and not because intention replaces action.

But because where we place our attention matters.

So today, let’s notice a few things that happened while much of the world was looking somewhere else.

And then let’s send a little more hope with them.

🐸 653 Endangered Frogs Returned to the Wild

This month, 653 endangered southern mountain yellow-legged frogs raised through conservation programs were released into their native habitat in California’s San Gabriel Mountains.

These little frogs have had a difficult road. The species has disappeared from approximately 99% of its historic range. Pollution, drought, wildfire, disease and other environmental pressures have all contributed to its decline.

But people haven’t given up on them.

The Los Angeles Zoo, Aquarium of the Pacific, U.S. Geological Survey and other conservation partners have been raising these frogs and returning them to the places where they belong. Nearly 7,000 frogs bred by the Los Angeles Zoo have now been released through the recovery effort.

Six hundred and fifty-three little lives went back into the mountains.

That is hope.

And there is something else I love about this story.

Across different cultures and spiritual traditions, frogs have carried symbolism connected with transformation, renewal, new life and change. It isn’t difficult to understand why. A frog begins life in water as something that barely resembles the creature it will eventually become.

Transformation is literally written into its life story.

So perhaps we can hold an intention for these frogs as they return to the wild.

May every little frog returning to the mountains carry the energy of renewal with it.

May what has been depleted begin to replenish.

May what has struggled find new life.

May stagnant places begin to move again.

May the waters be blessed by their return.

And may these tiny messengers of transformation remind us that something does not have to remain as it has been simply because it has been that way for a long time.

🤍 A Burden Is Being Lifted From More Than 130,000 People

Something extraordinary is also happening in Kentucky.

A new medical debt relief program is expected to erase at least $250 million in medical debt for more than 130,000 people.

And here’s one of the most beautiful parts: eligible people don’t have to fill out an application asking for help.

Qualifying debt is identified through participating medical-debt portfolios, purchased through the nonprofit Undue Medical Debt and canceled. Those whose debt has been eliminated receive a letter telling them what happened.

Imagine opening that letter.

Imagine carrying a medical bill month after month—perhaps from an illness, accident or another difficult period in your life—and discovering that a burden you didn’t know how you were going to overcome has been lifted.

Sometimes hope looks like healing.

Sometimes it looks like someone saying:

You don’t have to carry this anymore.

So let’s hold an intention of release with this story.

May burdens be lifted.

May doors open where people thought there were only walls.

May those who are struggling encounter unexpected compassion.

And for anyone reading this who is carrying something that has become unbearably heavy, may this story remind you:

Circumstances can change. Help can arrive. A burden you carry today may not be yours to carry forever.

🦧 What If Protecting Wildlife Could Also Help People?

Deep in Indonesian Borneo, another interesting experiment in hope is taking place.

Villagers are being paid to document wildlife.

Using phones and cameras, participants photograph and record orangutans, monkeys, birds and other animals they encounter. Verified observations provide conservation researchers with valuable information while also creating income for local people.

More than 350,000 wildlife observations had been submitted through the program by September.

The idea behind it is remarkably simple:

What if wildlife could become more economically valuable alive and protected than hunted or exploited?

There are still questions about how programs like this work over the long term. But I love the question being asked.

Because caring for the Earth cannot simply mean telling struggling human beings that they must sacrifice so that nature can survive.

We belong to the Earth, too.

Maybe the better solutions are the ones where people and the planet can flourish together.

So let’s send an intention with this one, too.

May humanity continue learning how to live with creation rather than simply taking from it.

May protecting animals also protect families.

May caring for forests create abundance rather than scarcity.

And may we become better caretakers of this beautiful world we have been entrusted with.

🐦 “Extinct in the Wild” Doesn’t Have to Mean the End

This next one might be my favorite.

There is a beautiful bird called the Sihek, also known as the Guam kingfisher.

The Sihek once lived in the wild on Guam, but the accidental introduction of the brown tree snake devastated native wildlife there. The last known wild sighting of a Sihek was in 1988.

Today, the species is officially classified as Extinct in the Wild.

Those words sound so final.

Except they weren’t.

Conservationists kept the species alive under human care.

Then, in 2024, nine Sihek were released on Palmyra Atoll, a protected island where they could live without the predator that had driven them from their original home.

And now another group is preparing for the possibility of joining them.

As many as eight more birds may be released later this year.

There are still fewer than 150 Sihek in the entire world. Their future isn’t guaranteed. Scientists are still waiting and hoping for the first wild-born chicks from the new population.

But think about this:

A species that hadn’t lived freely in the wild for decades is flying beneath an open sky again.

Perhaps this story carries the intention of restoration.

May what we thought was lost find its way home.

May what appears finished reveal another chapter.

May the things we have nearly given up on surprise us.

May life find a way forward.

And may we remember:

“Almost gone” is not always the same thing as “too late.”

❤️ Giving Someone Back More Than Their Words

Scientists are also working on something remarkable for people living with severe paralysis.

Researchers funded by the National Institutes of Health have demonstrated a brain-computer interface capable of translating brain activity into both speech and gestures through a digital avatar.

That distinction matters.

Because communication isn’t just words.

It’s a wave.

A smile.

A thumbs-up.

A movement that says, Yes!

A gesture that says, Come here.

Our bodies communicate pieces of our personalities that words alone sometimes cannot express.

Previous technologies have helped people with paralysis communicate in important ways. This experimental system goes further by trying to restore some of that fuller human expression.

It is still research. There is much more work to be done before technology like this could become widely available.

But somewhere in a laboratory, scientists aren’t merely asking:

How can we help someone communicate?

They’re asking:

How can we help someone express more of who they are?

Let’s hold an intention of connection with this one.

May those who feel trapped find new ways to reach beyond the walls surrounding them.

May science continue to be guided by compassion.

May technology serve human dignity.

May every person be seen as more than a body, a diagnosis, a limitation or a circumstance.

And may we continue finding ways to truly see and hear one another.

✨ Maybe This Is Part of Our Work, Too

None of these stories fixes everything.

There are still endangered animals.

There are still people drowning in medical bills.

There are still forests being destroyed.

There are still species disappearing.

There are still people living with devastating illnesses and disabilities.

Hope does not ask us to deny any of that.

Hope simply refuses to believe that darkness is the only thing worth noticing.

Maybe that is why I keep writing these Signs of Hope We Almost Missed articles.

Because somewhere today, someone is helping.

Someone is healing.

Someone is protecting something vulnerable.

Someone is discovering something we didn’t know yesterday.

Someone is refusing to give up on a species everyone thought was lost.

Someone is lifting a burden from a stranger they may never meet.

And perhaps our part can begin simply by noticing.

Then we can do something more.

We can add our prayers.

We can add our intentions.

We can add our compassion.

We can add our actions.

We can add our light.

So as you finish reading today, choose one of these stories that touched something inside you.

Hold it in your heart for just a moment.

Imagine the frogs returning to the water.

The letter telling someone their medical debt is gone.

The orangutan photographed instead of harmed.

The Sihek spreading its wings beneath an open sky.

The person who has been unable to move giving a wave through an avatar and once again communicating something that words alone couldn’t say.

And then quietly say:

More of this, please.

More healing.

More restoration.

More compassion.

More second chances.

More people choosing to help.

More reasons to hope.

The world has enough people watching for everything that is going wrong.

Let’s make sure someone is watching for the light, too.

Love and Blessings,
Rev. Sheri

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Continue Building the Bridge of Light

If this article reminded you that where we place our attention and intention matters, you may also appreciate the Bridge of Light Toolkit.

It was created to help you intentionally bring more light, compassion and hope into your own life and into the world around you—not by ignoring what is difficult, but by choosing how you respond to it.

Because every act of compassion matters. Every prayer matters. Every light we choose to add matters.