Our world is changing. The COVID pandemic has affected everyone of nearly every age. I’ve read several different accounts of elementary students, middle and high schoolers who have reached the extreme level of ‘no hope,’ due to the inability to cope with all the changes in their young lives.
These young people are taking their own lives, and sadly, sometimes in front of other students via their zoom class or other internet connection. This is beyond horrifying! It is more than my tiny brain can fathom, that young people would become so distraught, they’d take their own lives.
My husband has this ‘moan thing’ he does when he’s messing with the grandchildren that often makes us laugh. After a while, it finally dawned on me what it sounded like. Depending on your age, you might remember the show from the 70’s, “Hee Haw.” It was a country music, variety show and totally fun. There was one musical skit where two guys sing a song with the lines, “Gloom, despair, and agony on me; deep dark depression, excessive misery…..” At the end of the song they do this moan thing my husband has adopted. In a bizarre kind of way, it must be what our young people are feeling, and ultimately unable to work through.
The despair isn’t just confined to our children. There are adults in various stages of life throughout the country---and likely the world, who are also reaching the depths of desolation and despondency, to the point of suicide. Their hope is completely gone—like it never existed. It’s tragic!
Our culture has conditioned us to reach for a place where our hope is placed in something which is unable to sustain us. It can’t be found in world travel, nor in money, our friends or family, material goods or even in education, our work, alcohol, or drug use. Hope doesn’t exist here. People are searching for ‘hope’ in all the wrong places.
We have entered the Christmas season and with the COVID pandemic, everything has changed. Shopping is different, as are traditions, meals and even the celebration gatherings that are generations old. We are told to remain sequestered in our homes, with only those family members with whom we live. While the intention may be in our best interest, according to ‘the powers that be,’ this environment creates stress, loneliness, loss, fear, and hopelessness.
These feelings are very real, but despite this, it’s necessary to realize the true hope that can counter this, can only come from God. He has the power to give us HIS strength and HIS joy, even when our world is turned upside down and inside out! With God, we have the power to overcome the fears that would tear our minds and souls to shreds, leaving us with the need to just escape all the evil surrounding us on all sides!
Is there an ‘on off switch’ we can use to quickly make this happen? Perhaps not. It takes a genuine heart, which completely trusts in a God, who is alive and well to make the difference. Our problems may not instantly go away, but through HIS power, we have the means to work through whatever we are facing. We don’t have to do it alone and we certainly don’t have to lose hope!
Where there is hope, there is life! Breathe on, smile a little, perhaps even laugh! God’s got this, even when we are shaking in our boots!
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