Chances are that if you’re reading this, you are desperate for a good word. Life feels gritty. Overwhelming. You want to know if anyone sees you (or perhaps you’ve done something atrocious and the problem is that everyone sees you). You saw “hope” in the title, and you thought, “Yes. That’s me.” But you are probably wondering if there’s anything that anyone can really say in a brief post that will truly give you hope.

1. You are not alone in needing hope. There are thousands of people (maybe hundreds of thousands or more) like you right now. What you’re feeling and experiencing are not new to the human condition.
   
   It may sound demeaning, but you are not special in needing some hope. You have not invented some type of new despair. We humans are an old species, and whether first-world, third-world or old-world, we and those who have gone before us have experienced similar heartaches, crises, hangups and ruins.

   "Notes from the Trail" is a reader-supported publication. When you become (or invite someone to become) a subscriber, you’re an encouragement to me, and in a sense you’re saying, “Write more! Do it again.”

   Subscribe

2. You are not alone, and you are alive. Right now. In this moment, you are breathing, reading, and obviously have an internet connection. So, focus for a moment on being alive. No matter the pain, the sorrow, the bad news, the anxiety or depression, you are inhaling and exhaling. Behind a screen. Take one more deep breath after another. Then repeat. Your living has purpose.

3. There is help. You need hope. I assure you that there is someone (I would say Someone) who can help.1 No matter whether your current angst is due to your own decisions or the randomness of a world that feels broken, there is help. There are people like me out there, unknown personally to you, who care enough to type out some words that will persuade you that you are seen, that others care, and even that there are people who are willing to do something to serve you in these moments.

4. You have agency. By that, I mean that you have a choice right now. You have the power to think something different, to act in a new way, to begin to change things — even in the tiniest of ways. Miriam Webster defines agency as “the capacity, condition, or state of acting or of exerting power.” You can choose to wallow in hopelessness. You can choose to bathe in despair. But I suspect that if you’ve clicked your way here, you’re tired. You deeply want to experience hopefullness instead of hopelessness. Remember, you have agency.
   

   Share

5. Someone needs to hear your story. You may not think so. You clicked here because YOU need hope. However, as you relentlessly navigate these moments/days of turmoil and emotions, you’ll paddle through to calmer waters. It’s like white water rafting. The turbulence won’t last forever, but it’s very real (and often scary) in the moment. When you get through, someone you know will need to hear your story. Of tenacity. Of persistence. Of how you found hope in the hurt. Your story will sustain them. It’s wild to think now that your story will provide someone else with hope. But that’s the way it works.

Wrapping up…

There’s a beautiful truth in Paul’s letter to a first century church in Corinth in the New Testament:

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and the God of all comfort. He comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any kind of affliction, through the comfort we ourselves receive from God.2

It tells us two things:

1. God is the source of all comfort, and He will provide comfort to those who seek it from Him.

2. His provision is for the purpose of “passing it on.” When you have recovered your hope, give it to someone else.
   

   Leave a comment