A couple of weeks ago, a friend of mine that's struggling asked our friend group if we could start sending him inspirational/hopeful things, so we made another group chat specifically for that. Today, one of my other friends that is in that group chat sent this:
Alright friends, real talk. What do you do if you don’t have hope?
To which people started sending some nice messages, songs that have helped them, etc. And I could have done that too.
But I didn't.
This is what I sent back:
This is a lot less inspiring, but for me, sometimes I just have to keep going until the hope comes back.
Of course I pray and try to reach out to friends and such. And I have SO many sleep playlists and I listen to my Sunday playlist more because it's not so triggering.
But with all of that, I still feel hopeless sometimes. And when that's the case, I sob out prayers out loud and then just do my best to keep going until hope comes.
Depression/anxiety medication is also a must for me personally. I'm basically non-functional without it, though I hope to not need it someday.
And I have lots of playlists and picture quotes and scriptures and talks that I could share and will eventually, but honestly, the older I get, the more I realize that most of us have heard the same advice/words of encouragement over and over again for our whole lives and it's wonderful but also sometimes the very last thing that you want to hear.
It is absolutely true that God loves me, that things can and will get better someday, that I have people who care about me and are willing to help, and that all of my trials will be for my good. But knowing that doesn't stop me from feeling alone, hopeless, and worthless at times. And people reminding me of those things doesn't magically take away the pain. If anything it makes me feel guilty for not having more faith. But the thing is, I do have faith. I do believe in all of those good things. In my head. My heart? That is a different story. I can have faith while struggling to have hope.
Knowing those things is absolutely what helps keep me going, but not necessarily in the way that I think that we expect it to. It doesn't make me feel peace and joy when I'm in the pits. What it does do is give me the tiniest thread to cling to. It helps me to keep wading in the depths because I know in my mind that if I just keep going, hope will return someday.
I ended up playing Codenames online with my family and that friend tonight, and when everyone was signing off of the video call, it ended up being me and the friend left. So before he could end the call, I asked him how he was doing.
And then we just talked. And I didn't spout platitudes and try to convince him that things aren't as bad as they seem. I told him that I get what he's feeling. I've been feeling depressed quite a bit lately and just really down on myself. I talked to him about some of my own struggles, and we went back and forth relating to each other about this or that. We laughed in the midst of sharing our woes. And yeah, we talked a little bit about moving forward, but mostly we just chatted. I made him watch the library card song from Arthur. We talked about Anastasia the Broadway production and how Bartok and Rasputin aren't in it and I got In the Dark of the Night stuck in my head (which replaced the library card song that had been running through it). We played Dominion online against a computer named Lord Rattington that made us thing of Rattigan from The Great Mouse Detective.
And by the end of it all, we both felt a lot better.
I think that we sometimes make helping people harder than it has to be.
Here's the thing; I will absolutely remind you that you are a child of God and that there is purpose to our lives, no matter what point we are at in them. I will certainly send you playlists of soothing music and my favorite talks. But I'll also send you memes and silly videos and talk to you about random stuff. And I'll validate you feeling hopeless.
Not because I want you to feel that way, but because I have been there and often AM there. And when I am, I might not want to listen to a new playlist or have the ability to focus to read a talk. I might be tired of being told the same helpful things. I might have prayed all night for peace and still struggled to sleep and had nightmares.
Sometimes I just want to know that I'm not alone in what I'm feeling and that I don't have to feel like I don't have enough faith if I feel this way. I want to laugh about stupid things and play games because it gets my mind out of the darkness for just long enough to remind me why I'm still going.
I was joking with some other friends at church the other day about how it was so hard to make friends as a kid, but now I'm just like "Hey! I'm depressed, you should come over sometime" and the other person be like "Hey! I, too, am depressed and could use some company too!"
Obviously that's not how I became friends with those people in the first place, but still. And well, actually, that kind of is how I became friends with one of them at least, but I'm not going to get into that right now.
All I'm really trying to say here is that words of hope are definitely important and needed. But it's just as important and needed to recognize that those words alone might not be as helpful as you might think. It's okay to say "Everything will turn out okay, but I know that knowing that doesn't help you feel happy all of a sudden. I'm sorry that you are feeling this right now. I get it."
I've expressed in past posts that I feel like the reason that my testimony has remained strong through all of the horrible things that I've lived through is because I have had so many moments in my life where it literally felt like Christ was all that I had. I couldn't see Him or feel His love, but I knew that He was there and that was just enough to keep me going just a little bit longer.
And I stand by that.
I still have many a night where things feel hopeless. And it's all that I can do to just make it through the next minute, the next hour, the next day. But I do make it through them and I keep making it through them because I know that hope will return. And knowing that doesn't feel hopeful, but it is just enough.
So if you are in a period where hope is hard to find, please know that it is okay to simply live, or even just simply survive, for a little bit until it comes back. Because it will.
It always does if you just hold on a little bit longer.
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| I know that dandelions are weeds, but honestly, one of my favorite things about spring is when the green grass gets spotted with yellow dandelions. It's just so happy looking to me. |
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| Something inspiring about finding beauty in weeds |
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| Just look at them being all bright and happy even though people hate them! |
PPS- As I was looking for pictures to put at the top of this post, I stumbled upon this article that fit in perfectly with what I'm trying to say. I recommend reading the whole thing, though I will warn you that there is a bit of language.
Here are a couple of excerpts that really hit the nail on the head for me:
Hope is not thinking positive thoughts. Hope is not self-delusion. Hope is clinging to the life raft and kicking, even when there is no sight of land. Hope is a muscle. Like most muscles, it hurts like hell at first, but it gets easier as you get stronger, and you get stronger the more routine, seemingly pointless work you put into it. It is possible. It’s not easy. It takes the sort of work, every day, of doing what needs to be done to care for yourself, your community, your society, even when you resent having to do so and would rather lie down for five minutes or five months or the rest of your life. That’s hope. It’s not a mood. It’s an action. It’s behaving as if there might be a future even when that seems patently ridiculous....
...It means not listening to the semirational sliver of your brain that believes staying in bed drinking liquid ice cream is the better option. And eventually—maybe soon, probably not—things change. Eventually, probably not today, you feel better, or different. That’s what hope is. That’s it. That’s all. It’s [bull crap] and necessary and anyone can do it. You’re welcome.
Last PS, promise- A different friend sent me this article yesterday and it also really spoke to me, so maybe it will to you too! Again, there is a little bit of language, just so you know
