Guest Blog Post- LS Kirkpatrick
Hope is not an Empty Word!
“I hope you get it”, “I am hoping for the best”, “I hope so”.
Have you ever heard these? Perhaps you have even said them yourself.
How do they make you feel? Encouraged? Discouraged?
When you hear the word “hope”, do you think of sunshine with warm days and peace?
Does hearing the word “hope” give you something to cling to?
OR
Are you left with a feeling of, “I’ve hoped before and nothing happened, nothing.”
When you “hope for the best”, have you given up and decided to just let the circumstances take over? Will you take what is left, if anything?
If you look at hope as doing for you what you aren’t doing for yourself, you most likely will be disappointed.
I believe that is not what Hope is for.
In my 60 plus years of life I have seen hope in others as a spark to ignite a dream, a light in the darkness – even if it is only a little light, and a pulling force to get them where they want to be in life.
I have also seen it as a way to say, I don’t know what else to do, but hope.
Those are all positive.
The negative is when you expect hope to do for you what you are not willing to do for yourself. And that is not what hope is. That is hopelessness.
So, what is hope?
For me and others like me, Hope is what keeps you going. Hope offers a solution to a situation. Hope can pull you out of a dark situation and bring you into an amazing future. Hope can give you a different
perspective from what you are experiencing right now.
Hope can ignite that fire that may have grown dim, it offers a glimpse into a future of possibilities that
get you to where you really want to be.
How does this happen?
You. Yes You. If you have heard me speak before, you know that I have said it before and I will continue to say it; You have great value in you, you are worthy and you are enough!
Why? Because only you have lived your life. No one before you has lived your life, no in the future will live your life. You are the only one that has made the decisions, the choices, that you have made, or have had to live with the choices made by others that impacted your life. This makes you so unique and valuable, that you alone have a hope inside of you that others can gain their own hope from.
Your uniqueness gives you a perspective on life that allows you to bring a hope to others, such as a friend that may be going through something and confides in you. That friend doesn’t need someone to tell them what to do, but needs a different perspective on their situation, one that you can give. That is hope. It offers a way to look any situation with “fresh eyes” so to speak.
This applies to business, to social groups, as well, because you have a unique ability to see the world through your own eyes. You have value to offer every day. This value does not go away. Each time you give value into someone else, you actually get value returned to you, so you never run out.
Valuable, worthy, enough you, can see hope in a given situation. You have done it before, you can do it again.
Of course, there are days when you feel drained, tired, want to shut the world out and take a break from it all. This is called a “pause” and it is a necessary part of life. You need to get re-energized yourself. Your
energy level might get low, but your value never does.
Your value is not like a bowl of water that you are pouring out, that is your energy. Your value is always there, always available, just like Hope is always there and always available. They are constant.
Hope is the gift of being able to look forward. Hope is what walks with you on your journey. Hope is there patiently waiting for you to recharge and continue on.
For those who are faith based- your hope is not in yourself, but in one who is stronger, kinder, more loving and can bear the weight of the world for you.
For those who are not faith based – your hope is still not in yourself, but in what your mind’s eye can see. A brighter day, a possibility that you didn’t have before, an opportunity that was always there, but for whatever reason you couldn’t see it until Hope showed up.
Hope lets you take action. When you have been working hard, trying so hard and nothing seems to be working, you pause and look around to see what is going on. Why isn’t it working? Then you see hope.
You might think “Oh, I never thought of that” as you are listening to a podcast, or a speaker, or are sitting in a café and overhear a conversation. We’ve all done it, you are not eavesdropping, you are in a
public place, and you hear this conversation clearly and loudly.
If you are a parent, sometimes your hope comes from the innocent thinking of a child, and you realize that you have let the negative thoughts capture you, instead of you capturing your thoughts and taking charge of them.
Just an FYI for capturing thoughts. I have a meditation I listen to in the evening, sometimes also in the morning and one thing I have learned from it is to do this:
When I have a thought that is distracting, negative, remembrance of an old wound, I acknowledge that it is there, but then tell it there is no place for it here anymore and I say goodbye to it. They may come back again, and again, but each time I acknowledge them, and then tell them they don’t live here anymore and they have to leave and I scoot them on their way. Eventually you will realize that you are not being distracted by them, fed negatively by them or even remember them. You have taken them captive and have taken charge of them.
What about the people around you who are telling you to give up hope? You need to find new people to be around. Seriously. You can’t just leave your family, but you can limit the negativity from them. You
can choose to be around others that feed you positively.
Have you heard of the story of which wolf are you feeding?
You may know of the question if you have: Who are you feeding the most? The greedy destructive wolf
or the life-giving wolf?
Hope let’s you feed the life-giving wolf.
Hope guides you to the things, the people, the situations that will keep you on the path to get you to where you want to be.
OF course there will be distractions along the way, but you keep looking at hope and you will keep going the right way.
Sometimes it is okay to be sidetracked for a little bit only. You might gain insight that you didn’t see before, but don’t stay there. Some side roads are actually a better path, you have to decide for yourself.
When you keep that hope in front of you, you will know what to do, and if not, you will ask others and listen to the value they will pour into you. IF you are not getting any value, then you know you need to move on.
This is why it is important to keep those around you that feed you life-giving wolf too.
Hope is not empty, or meaningless, it is vibrant and alive. It is not limited, or powerless, and neither are you.
You are full of value and worth and you are enough!
I love what Steve Harvey said in a short clip on YouTube, and I am very loosely paraphrasing here. ” You have already conquered 100%. Think of the times before in your life, when you didn’t’ know what to do, which way to turn or how to handle a situation and you found hope in each of those. Because you are here right now. Your rate to success is 100%, because you are here right now.”
That is absolutely hopeful. Think of that, you are a 100% success already. Tell yourself that, say it out loud and tell yourself that every day!
“I have great value in me,”
“I am worthy and I am enough.”
“I am 100% Successful.”
(Grab your FREE Biblical Affirmations poster HERE.)
I need to put a word of warning here:
What are you hoping for?
Is it for things that will only be temporary?
Is it for someone?
Hope is not to be used to get what or who you want, it is to guide you to the direction and is the means to accomplish what you want or who you want to be around.
Are you hoping for popularity? Why, what is it that you really want? To be acknowledged? Loved? The center of attention?
If what you are hoping for is empty, then hope has nothing to cling to.
We all want to be loved and acknowledged; that is not empty. What are you doing to gain those? Are you looking at self-improvement, learning to love yourself first and then learning how others want to be loved?
I heard someone say that grief is hopelessness, but I disagree. Grief is the loss of something or someone.
That can be a very deep emotion. Hope will be different for each person in their grief. For some, it is that the love I had for that something or someone now has no place to go. Hope says that there is a place for
it to go, when you are ready, into something or someone else. For some, the hope is that life is fluid, and though I have to say goodbye, I know that is not the end of me, nor should it be.
I think loneliness is one of the most hopeless feelings one can have. Sometimes it is good to be alone, to have tine for yourself and that is not what I am talking about here. I am talking about the times when
you are in a crowd of people, or family and you are interacting in conversation with them, but you still feel like you are all alone. That is when you need Hope the most. You need to feed that life-giving wolf
the most during that time.
Take a moment, just a little pause, and ask yourself why you are feeling this way. Where is your hope at?
Did you leave it in a drawer somewhere or shut it out?
What I have done is this, and perhaps it can help you as well:
This is the time when you need the value of someone else to help you find where you misplaced your hope. This is where your people around you need to help you feed that life-giving wolf. This is when you
need to capture those negative thoughts and take charge of them.
Have you become comfortable in this feeling? Do you need to get uncomfortable to break free and discover that Hope?
What I have also discovered is a routine. Now for me any “Routine” seems like a boring, daunting task that drains my energy by doing it over and over and over again. Just thinking about the word routine makes me go, ugh. However, I have found a morning and evening routine to be one of the most helpful tools I have ever used.
Why? It focuses my purpose in life and it focuses my mind to be where hope is. Not a false empty hope, but a hope in knowing that each day is taken care of already, and no matter what happens, even the
unexpected, I am still able to handle it all.
Every morning I start with what works for me: devotinal, prayer time, daily care of me time, filling out my daily journal and seeing my schedule for the day, checking and responding to emails, messages and
texts. Then I do what needs to be done.
I make sure when I schedule my day I put in time for me. Perhaps it is only 14 minutes, or it can be two hours depending on the day. This is my time to breathe and be at peace.
Then when evening arrives and time with family is completed, I recap the day with my evening journal and dump all that is in my brain down on paper, so it is not thrown out, but placed somewhere safe, other than my mind, so I get a restful, peaceful night’s sleep. I listen to an app of meditation and slow me down for the night and say my prayers in grateful gratitude for all we have, because I have lived in a
life that was not as easy.
Sometimes it is good to ask yourself one question that you would like answered when you wake up in the morning. Write it down in your journal. Even though we rest, I understand that our brains are
perpetually in motion.
What does all of this have to do with hope?
It keeps Hope active. Hope gives you options, but you need to know where you are so you know what options are available to you. Hope is now alive in what you do, it keeps you inspired, creative and unblocked. The thoughts of oppression, doom, and helplessness have no room because you have things to do, places to go and people to see, even vacations to enjoy, day trips to re-energize in and sometimes
scheduling that hour to have a nice quiet, peaceful lunch by yourself is so very much worth it.
For me, these morning and evening routines release me from any feelings of being a captive prisoner at my job, or in my family. It gives me the hope of a vibrant future, and this is also available to you.
You see, Hope is filled with all that we need to have courage in fearful situations. Hope is filled with all that we need to take that one step in the direction we need to go.
“Hope is not empty, and neither are you. You have great value in you, you are worthy, and you are
enough!”
Hope is a companion for you to get to where you want to be.
About the Author
LS Kirkpatrick
I'm LS Kirkpatrick and after 30 years of family history and research, I decided to write stories for my grandchildren. During the process of learning what it takes to write, publish and market books, I have learned to create positive changes in my client's writings and business and find ways to guide their ideas into the reality of their Vision; keeping their voice in what they do, moving forward with their lives in a creative and constructive way. As a speaker, my main topic is Value, giving value to others. My minor topics are genealogy, 5 steps to writing and entrepreneur success, and last but definitely not least, “Why Meemaw loves Jesus”. Click to check out my website.
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