Episode 86 - Helping Others With Hope

All of us have faced challenges to our hope, perhaps even to our life.  And as we've overcome those challenges we now are in a position where we can help others.  It is one of the best ways to strengthen our own hope.  

In this episode I give some insights into how we can help others when their hope is challenged.  We may not have all the answers, but we can be there.

Transcript

Hello Friends, I’m your host Dr. Dave Laton and thank you for joining me in Our Journey to Hope.

 It is my desire through this podcast to bring you information about how to discover, sustain, or perhaps regain hope.  

 One of the best ways to strengthen our own hope is to look around at how we can help others.  I can’t think of a better way to help others than to help them discover, sustain, or regain hope.  In doing so, we help ourselves, we help others, and we set in motion a chain of positive events as they too learn to help others. All of us have faced challenges to hope.  Therefor, all of us can help others with their challenges.

 Remember also, no matter the times or conditions, we all need hope.  Without it, we have no life or desire to live.  So let’s be busy breaking the chain of hopelessness and replacing it with the chain of hope.

 In this episode I want to give some practical ways in which we can help others in their journey to hope.  

 Let’s start by remembering that in helping others with challenges to hope we must be a hopeful person ourselves.  We model that behavior and attitude we want to help the other person have.  

 We can help others with their challenges to hope by expressing to them that we believe in them.  Let them know we have confidence that they can succeed in meeting their challenges.  When we do this, we must physically look at them as tell them that you believe in them.  This will help us communicate our hopeful message.   

 Sometimes just letting someone know that someone believes in them is enough to spark a sense of hope in them and help them begin to rebuild.  This is especially valuable if we  have walked that journey and can show them a living example.  But even if we haven’t experienced the specific thing they are dealing with, we have faced challenges and have overcome them.

 Be a person who tells others that we believe in them.  That helps give them what it takes to make the effort.  They see an example and they see one who believes in them.

 A part of expressing our belief in someone is that we are also expressing we care.  Care helps remove the loneliness that so often accompanies challenges to hope.  When we overcome loneliness, we also feel hopeful.  We express our care for someone when we say positive things to them to encourage them.  I don’t mean by this to express empty platitudes.  Part of our encouraging words is to offer concrete and specific help.  This lets them know they are not alone.  We can say something like, “You can do this.  I know you can.  Others have, and I have.”  

 Another example is, “Don’t give up.  Keep fighting!  You are not in this alone.”  

 A second way we can help someone with hope is we be willing to listen to them.  Having someone to listen to us is critical to hope.  Sometimes simply having someone listen is all a person needs.  When we listen, we give understanding and learn how to help them with their challenges.  

 When we listen, we give them the gift of our time and attention.  By focusing on them, we are communicating that they have value.  Giving our time by listening is one of the greatest gifts we can give.  It is something we cannot take back.  

 A third way we can help someone with hope is to help them discover a pathway forward.  A reason so many find their hope challenged is they lose sight of their pathway forward.  By the way, that goes back to the previous point, we have to listen and give our time to know how to help them move forward.

 As we help them discover the pathway forward, we can also help them identify their strengths.  We can help them remove a weakness by replacing it with a strength.  Too often the weakness is what is in control.  So helping identify a strength and helping to bring it to bear is a way to remove the impact of the weakness.  Something that may not be seen as a strength can grow to be a strength if it is exercised.  We know that from regular life.  As we exercise, we gain strength.  Ask a runner or a weightlifter.  

 Strengths come from things we are naturally good at or enjoy.  We can help others identify these and help them shift their focus onto their strengths.

 All of us have strengths.  Certainly, strengths come in different degrees, but all of us have something we can draw on and build upon.

 I want to shift focus just a bit and look at two specific situation we might find ourselves in where we have the opportunity to help someone with hope.  One is go give hope to a person that has lost a loved one.  This is such a devastating situation for many.  We might not know what to say.  We might even feel grief ourselves.  This is when listening is such a valuable skill.  We need to be there, sometime s just sitting quietly.

 Don’t feel like you have to have the perfect answer or say just the right thing.  It is far better to listen.  If someone expresses a concern or feeling, that is a good thing.  Be a listener.  Ask them follow-on questions to help them clarify their thoughts or feelings.  Ask they why they feel a certain way.  Ask them to explain their feelings.  Ask them what you can do.  And remind them, that they are not alone.  I can’t express enough how important it is to keep in mind for ourselves and to help others know that we are not alone.

 A second specific situation we might find ourselves in is when someone is going through an illness, especially one that has a difficult prognosis.  We have to be careful of what we say so that we don’t communicate false hope.  But where there is life, there is hope.  If there is a likelihood of recovery from treatment then we should focus on that and communicate encouragement to continue on, even when it gets difficult.  

 Please allow me a personal note here.  Here's a way to help the person look at their situation.  Help them to see that they have been given a gift.  We don’t usually look at these kinds of situations as a gift, but they can be.  Through my experiences with leukemia, I gained true insights into what it means to have your life and hope challenged.  But I also realized that I could use the life I was given and the experiences I had to help others in their challenges.  I now volunteer at our local cancer center, as do many other cancer survivors.  We have been given a gift of life and knowledge to now help others.  We’ve been there and we’re now there to help them.

 That’s why I am so passionate about letting people know that they are not alone.

 If a person is terminally ill, don’t let them abandon hope, please be there for and with them and their family.  I am not an expert in the field of hospice care.  I am so very thankful for these kind and compassionate professionals.  I encourage you to listen to episode 39 of this podcast as I have a conversation with a hospice care professional.  We discuss what hospice is and how they continue helping the person and family as they go through end-of-life situations.  I was pleased to learn that end-of-life care is not all that hospice offers.  So please listen to that episode, episode 39 and share it if someone you know is facing that challenge.  There is hope.

 Something to remember as we begin to close is that when we help someone overcome their challenges to hope, we are expressing our love for them.  We are giving ourselves for them.  Our Lord said that there is no greater love than to give one’s life for another.  That’s what we are doing.  

 And when we bring hope, we also bring a purpose for life.  It might be that someone has lost their purpose.  It can be regained, if even for a short time remaining.  

 One last thought, true and lasting hope is found through our Lord Jesus Christ.  The life we have in him has purpose.  We learn through our relationship with Him the true meaning of love.  We see how he serves us and how we in turn serve others.  And the greatest service we can bring is to help others find hope.

 Friends, thank you for joining me as together we journey to hope.  I trust in some small way we have encouraged you to discover, sustain, or regain hope through this effort.   

 I invite you to contact me if you have questions or comments, or if you wish to share with me something you’ve experienced in your journey to hope.  My email is info@ourjourneytohope.com.   

 And please, share this podcast with someone whose hope is being challenged.

 I look forward to sharing more with you soon.  Again, I'm Dr. Dave Laton, and thank you for listening.  And until our next episode, remember, we give all glory to God our Father.