Skip to main content

Why we can't live without Hope.

Why we can't live without hope.

Hope gives us a reason to live. There was never a happier time in my life than when I had hope. It's easy to think that things can't get better and that is one of the reasons why we give up. Hope doesn't have to come from having things, but when we have things we can still lose hope. A health crisis, an unhappy marriage can give us reason to believe that we will miss out on being happy. When things are really bad we might need someone to carry us or pick us up. It's nice to feel secure but hope comes from believing there is a future. Part of the cause of my depression in 1999 was feeling that I wasn't going to have a future, therefore I had no reason to keep believing. I let my circumstances literally crush me, but now I don't blame myself, because I see that I was just human and fragile, just like everyone else.

It took me 20 years to see that I needed to forgive myself for losing hope. It was a fight, and it is a struggle to see that people need each other and that we all need something or someone to hope for. When we feel alone and not seen it can do a number on my sense of self-worth. I no longer see myself as someone with value, and if I'm not careful I can turn to the wrong things to bring back that sense of self worth. I can turn to religion, I can turn to psychology, and other things. Even though these things can help, and for some they bring back some security, my hope should come from me and my ability to live my life, and make my own choices and to decide that I want to be happy. I have heard many things about hope over the years, and if it seems you are one of those people that keep being put under the bus, try to get out.

You'll be much happier in the long run, not if you learn to just depend on yourself but if you see the importance in allowing yourself to experience hope again. Maybe you just need to feel free, maybe you needed to make those mistakes in order to encourage someone who like you lost their hope. Maybe someone abused you, and the last thing you want to do is forgive them and move on. It could be that you are reminded day after day of that person, or that there is a thing there to constantly harass you and you want to be free. You dream of the day that you get your sense of control back. Don't give up.

This is why we lose hope, we feel we can't win over that person or circumstances that hurt us, or hurt the ones we love. We need our power back, and that is what evil wants to do to you. It wants to get you to think that you can't choose for the good anymore. Just say no to those thoughts. They are there to accuse you, you don't need to overpower them, just try being kinder to yourself, and assert yourself. If you are not sure how to do that, just remember a time in your life where you had more confidence. What are you doing different now? Find those who will affirm and love you. This is Mike.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Catholic Identity.

  I was born into the Catholic Church and was baptized as an infant, I had my first communion and reconciliation as a child, and was confirmed as a teenager. Although I was never devout, I accepted Jesus Christ as my personal Lord and Saviour when I was 21 through an evangelical Christian radio ministry, which in turn gave new life to my Catholic faith. Although I remained a Catholic, I identified as a born again Christian. It wasn’t until much later in my life that I learned the difference between the two denominations and what they taught about being born again. Regardless, there was a significant change in my life back then, which continues to this day. Being Catholic is much like an identity to me and I remember growing up under the papacy of St. Pope John Paul II. The culture I grew up in was largely affected by his papacy, and the way the culture viewed the church was significantly different from the way the current culture views it. Growing up, the pope didn’t try to be rele...
1 comment
Read more

Age of Brokenness.

  We are living in an age of brokenness, no matter what age you are, you probably have been touched with relationships falling apart, which causes more and more people to live in isolation. In this generation there is less of an incentive to heal and reconcile relationships, but that doesn’t excuse the amount of people who are broken. Why people don’t seem to be motivated to heal relationships is because our beliefs about faith and God have changed, really giving us less of an incentive to do what our religion says. If I act from my personal beliefs, but the person that I am responding to has abandoned religious beliefs, than the response to my wanting things to be better can be misinterpreted and rejected then by someone else. Generally when a society has expectations about broken relationships, loneliness and isolation, and the beliefs are generally accepted, society becomes a more compassionate society, because all value the same things. When religious values are undermined and ...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Biblical Meaning of “Life in the Spirit.”

  “Life in the Spirit” is an example that the Apostle Paul gives in the book of Romans starting in chapter 5 and going through to chapter 8. He begins by telling us we are justified by faith (5:1), and have gained access by faith into the grace of God (5:2). We have been delivered from God’s wrath (5:9) and we have been reconciled to God through the death of His Son (5:10). He goes on to explain that through Adam all die (5:12), and that the free Gift of God brings justification and righteousness to the believing sinner (5:15-17).   Through our conversion we are baptized into Christ and into his death, which frees us from the law and makes us dead to sin (6:2-4). He explains that just as Christ was raised from the dead, we are given new life in Christ (6:4). Our old unregenerate self was crucified with Christ so that our body of sin might be done away with (6:5-6). Because we have died to sin, we now submit ourselves to God being that we are now under grace, not the law (6:8-1...
Post a Comment
Read more