Hope is a Place

Did you wake up one day with living on your mind
Thought you had been living all this time
Your family, your friends you really love them,
True.
Yet that’s not all the livin’ there’s left to do

(Chorus)
To make a difference
To change this world
To love when love cannot be returned
To know that some live on a dime
To give our most precious gift
Our time
To teach our children compassionate grace
And let them know hope is a place

(Verse two)
Who’s helping who when we give of ourself
Who of us wished the cards we were dealt
Behind the human struggle lives a smile
it’s by giving we forget our own struggle for a while

(Chorus)
To make a difference
To change this world
To love when love cannot be returned
To know that some live on a dime
To give our most precious gift
Our time
To teach our children compassionate grace
And let them know hope is a place

(Verse Three)
Will there always be tears and hungry souls
We don’t know how this world will go
The seed of Time seems impossible to grow
Can we plant one today to reap what we sow

(Chorus)
…Take my hand
Lets sow a smile, lets sow a hug,
Lets sow a world for our children to love
To make a difference
To change this world
To love when love cannot be returned
To know that some live on a dime
To give our most precious gift
Our time
To teach our children compassionate grace
And let them know hope is a place…
Hope is a place…compassionate grace…
Lets hope…Hope Is A Place

By Barbara Tremblay Cipak

THE HISTORY BEHIND THE WRITING OF “HOPE IS A PLACE”

I wrote Hope Is a Place in the early 2000s, during a time in my life when I was raising my kids, working, and trying to hold everything together. It was inspired by a feeling I carried back then—a kind of quiet guilt that I wasn’t contributing “enough” to the world because all my time was going to my family. I remember thinking, How can I give anything more when I’m already giving everything I have right here at home?

But gradually, I came to see things differently: the time I dedicated to my family was, in fact, my way of offering hope to the world. None of us are perfect parents—we all stumble, we all make mistakes, and there are days when we wonder if we’re getting anything right at all. Yet raising a family is one of life’s greatest responsibilities. The energy, love, and care we pour into it—even amidst the chaos and messiness—are what allow the world to become a little kinder, a little more hopeful. Most of us are quietly trying to make life better, and that effort matters far more than we often realize.

And hope—that’s truly my word. My family knows it, and they gently tease me about it, but it’s meaningful in a way that runs deep. My closest friend and I each have a word that defines us, and hers led her to give me a necklace engraved with hope. I’ve worn it constantly for years. Hope is woven into my daily life. Life isn’t always easy—sometimes it feels simple, but rarely completely smooth. What keeps me going, over and over, is hope. That’s the heart of this piece of writing.

And that’s how Hope Is a Place came to life—born from a busy, sometimes overwhelming chapter of motherhood, yet rooted in the belief that hope grows in the moments we invest our time, our care, and our love.