The Necessity of Hope
Julie David, LPC
When I was a teenager, one of my favorite movies was Hope Floats, starring Sandra Bullock and Harry Connick, Jr. I loved the actors and the soundtrack, and it was filmed in East Texas. What’s not to like? But even beyond that, even as a young person, I understood and appreciated the concept that “hope floats, always rising to the top.” If you have hope, you can go on even in the face of insurmountable difficulty: grief, loss, betrayal, depression, or any of the other tragedies of this life. Many things are lacking in our culture today, and I believe that hope is one of them. Narcissism is rampant, selfishness destroys families, and our busyness keeps us from connecting with what or who is truly important.
An example from ministry
I see this especially when working with couples. Granted, when a couple comes to counseling they are usually past the point of needing a nice little tune-up. They have lost hope that their marriage will weather the current storm and last for a lifetime. They have lost hope that there is Someone greater than the two of them that will keep them going and keep them together. When I lived in the Dallas area I had the privilege of working with a wonderful marriage ministry called Cornerstone. It was tailored for those couples who had lost hope and were on the brink of divorce, but were making one last-ditch effort to try to make it work. The one thing that stands out to me from those weekends is the change from hopelessness to hope that happens in the hearts of those individuals who come and do the work required of them that weekend. Couples who have filed for divorce, are already separated, or who count their marriage as distressed leave the weekend renewed with a sense of purpose, reconciled relationships and – here’s that word again - hope for their marriage. What really makes the difference? It’s not that the hurt of the affair goes away or that trust has been completely restored, or that forgiving one another creates a holy amnesia, but they find something more powerful than themselves at this weekend. They find hope. Not just hope that they can mend the marriage, but hope in person of Jesus Christ.
An example from Scripture
Most of us who have grown up in the church are familiar with the story of the bleeding woman as told in Mark 5. Jesus was on his way to bring back to life the Jewish leader Jairus’s daughter and large crowd had gathered around him, as usual. The Mark account tells us:
And a woman was there who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years. She had suffered a great deal under the care of many doctors and had spent all she had, yet instead of getting better she grew worse. When she heard about Jesus, she came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak, because she thought, “If I just touch his clothes, I will be healed.” Immediately her bleeding stopped and she felt in her body that she was freed from her suffering. (5:25-29, NIV)
Put yourself in this woman’s shoes for a moment. Scripture doesn’t tell us much about her, but we know that after so many failed attempts at healing that she must have been desperate. According to Jewish law she was ceremonially “unclean” and therefore had to avoid contact with her religious community. She undoubtedly heard the stories about Jesus’s miracles. Maybe she had even witnessed some from afar. I can just imagine that she was willing to try anything else in order to be accepted back into her Jewish community and be freed from her suffering. Why not just see if she could get close enough to touch Him without actually bothering Him? She may not have realized that she was placing her hope in the Son of God, but that’s exactly what she did. And what a blessed decision! Jesus’s response to her was “Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace and be freed from your suffering.” (Mark 5:34)
What does this mean for counseling?
What if we actually approached the throne of grace with such confidence? Hebrews tells us that we can, and we will find “mercy and grace to help us in our time of need.” (Heb 4:16) Hope has the potential to float to the surface exactly at the time when our perceived need intersects with faith. Dictionary.com defines hope as “a feeling of expectation and desire for a certain thing to happen; a feeling of trust.” This is one of the many things I love about my role as a counselor. At a time in life when hopelessness seeps in, I get to offer something beyond the circumstances. This is different than blowing smoke, or offering shallow platitudes like “It will all work out in the end,” or “Just let go and let God.” The hope I get to offer sounds more like “There is a God who loves and sees you, and hasn’t forsaken you in this.” Or “While life might really stink right now, I choose to believe for you that Jesus can get you through this.”
In all fairness, I am generally an optimist, particularly in the counseling room. And I’m reminded of the way God uses that personality trait every time I see the stuffed Energizer Bunny given to me by one of my long-time clients. I don’t believe that it’s just me, but it’s the Jesus in me. He is the only constant. He is the only source of hope. He is the only one that can really keep going and going and going and going…
Sources:
https://www.dictionary.com/browse/hope
https://www.marriageministry.org/