We are, most of us, surviving a global pandemic. We are living through lockdowns and restrictions, and a load of situations we have never had to deal with before.
Some of us are managing, and some of us are not.
Many are finding it hard to find hope in their day-to-day, let alone be able to look forward and see it in their future.
There are times in our lives when life can be just plain and simply hard. But when those ‘normal’ times of challenge are added to the confronting world of a pandemic, of change, and a sense of no control, it becomes harder again.
Of course, there are days when some of us are doing better, and only a few days when we struggle.
For a lot of people, sadly no matter what, they still can’t see through the darkness and enjoy even a sense of seeing the light at the end of the tunnel.
Have you ever been in a situation where you have tried to express how alone, or lost, or without hope you feel, and someone says,
"You just have to focus on what you have."
In that moment do you just go quiet?
Do you stop sharing, because you realise right there in that instant that they just don’t understand?
Do those words in that moment just confirm how lost and alone you are?
Funnily enough, I’ve been on both sides of that conversation.
I realise that in that instant when I tried to get the person to refocus on their haves rather than their have nots, my intention was good and true. But when you are on the other side it just doesn’t feel like that at all. It feels like you are ungrateful and stupid. I am sorry for the times I’ve been that person.
We have to remember that when you are without hope it is most likely because you just don’t have any ability whatsoever to see what is good and right and true. You just don’t.
It’s not because you’re not trying. It’s not because you don’t want to. There is not a high level of consciousness happening in the situation at that point in time.
Our response is simply because in those moments, at the point in time, we are totally blind. Blind to any light. Blinded by the immense darkness that surrounds us.
And for each of us we find hope in different places. So, in order to help someone who is feeling hopeless we need to be able to understand where they found their hope in the first place. And that doesn’t happen in that instant.
I remember once talking to someone who was clearly in a place of hopelessness. As they were a friend, I wanted them to feel better. Friend or not, I can’t leave someone feeling like that if I know about it. I wanted them to find something to look forward to. But imagine my horror when that moment came, and right there, mid-sentence, I realised that they really didn’t have anything in their life where they could find hope.
They didn’t have close family, they didn’t have close friends, and for a mix of reasons they weren’t particularly good at relationships. They had a home and a job and were not sick or struggling financially. But what they needed, what they lacked, the place they were going to actually find hope, wasn’t in what they had.
Their lack of hope was because of what they didn’t have.
What they lacked was a connection. Real human connection.
They didn’t feel like they had someone who truly valued them. They couldn’t be assured that someone they knew cared about them no matter what. They knew people who loved them, but they did not have the ability to feel that love.
So how do we find hope when it seems so allusive?
A large portion of the answer to this question is in recognising what we have. But that is not going to happen for those in the moment of hopelessness.
I could have stuck with the stock standard response and remind them of the people who love them and value them. I could have assured them of how much I love and value them. I could have talked about the future and what they had to look forward to. But that was not going to cut it.
What we try to do is give someone our hope. But you can’t give someone your hope. We all need hope of our own.
And hope is found in connection. Connection to ourselves first, and then to those in our lives. Again until we find value in ourselves, we cannot see the value others place on us.
And while at that moment, on that day, even I couldn’t clearly see their hope, what is true is that did have one small connection. They had, good or bad, one connection to me. I had the potential to be their hope.
I couldn’t give them my hope, but I could give them connection.
I could listen and hear and remind them of what I knew to be true and good and right about them. Not because they were going to necessarily agree, but because hope needs to build, and sometimes the smallest seed can amount to a lot.
That is not nothing, when trying to find hope.
Connection is something. It is the first step to helping someone to find their hope.
But someone who feels hopeless needs a whole lot of brave to reach out and find that connection on their own. And hopeless and brave rarely live in the same place.
That’s where campaigns like R U OK Day come into effect. They give people the chance to find their brave and for us to connect.
I guess this is the part where I point out there is a lack of hope that fits the definition of depression, and there is a lack of hope that is a true struggle, but not debilitating. So, if your hopelessness is overwhelming, please ask for help. Please reach out. You need a connection, but you need a professional too.
I struggle as I write this next bit, because I know it might sound manipulative or predictable, rather than me trying to share me, but I will push on.
I find my hope in my faith.
I see my faith in God and His love for me as the light in the dark.
My faith does not protect me from darkness, but it does assure me of an eternal light.
I know if you don’t believe what I believe, or even if you do, that sounds so cliché. But for me it is true.
For someone like me, who on paper has so much, there are still days when I feel lost and alone. I know I am loved and supported and valued. I know that in my head. But hope is not in my head, hope is in my heart. And my heart is not always as resilient as my head.
On a bad day, on my worst days, as Julia Roberts’ character said in Pretty Woman “The bad stuff is easier to believe.” On the bad days in those moments when you are telling me all the good stuff, I can’t hear it. I can’t see it. It does not exist.
But what does exist for me everyday is my hope in God and His promises to me. I believe in that. I trust in that. And when people let me down and I lose hope in them, I have hope in Christ.
I have a connection with God that can pull me through when the connection I need with people isn’t working.
My prompt today to write was ‘Hope can be Hard’, and while this could have been about all the different ways to find hope, I’m not sure that is what we need. I think we need to acknowledge the reality of hope.
Hope is hard. It is, really.
We must desire it and consciously look for it. When we find it, we must appreciate it and hold on as tight as we can.
We need to become familiar with hope when we find it. We need to record it, draw it, write about it, take a picture of it, and put it somewhere that we can find it easily.
Truly, we can all have hope. We really can.
Hope starts by finding the smallest piece and seeing it, recognising it, and adding to it as you can to make it grow.
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