The Meet Hope Podcast
The Meet Hope Podcast
84: How to Hold Hope: Supporting Each Other with Faith
What does it mean to truly "do life together"? As life throws its inevitable challenges our way, how can faith and community be a vital source of strength and support? In this episode, Pastor Heather introduces the empowering concept of being a "hope holder"—someone who offers steadfast support and empathy without the need to fix everything. By sharing personal stories, we highlight the deep importance of empathy, presence, and the courage to seek help when needed. We delve into the discomfort many feel when offering support and how dismissive platitudes can often miss the mark. Instead, we focus on the real power of simply being there, listening, and holding space for others' pain and joy. Don't miss this inspiring episode that promises to enrich your understanding of faith, support, and genuine human connection.
NOTES & RESOURCES:
- Contact Pastor Heather: heather@meethope.org
- Dad Chats on Instagram or TikTok:
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Welcome to the Meet Hope Podcast, where we have conversations about faith and hope. Hope is one church made of people living out their faith through two expressions in person and online. We believe a hybrid faith experience can lead to a growing influence in our community and our world for the sake of others. Welcome to Hope.
Speaker 2:Hi everyone, welcome to the Meet Hope Podcast. My name is Ashley Black, I'm going to be your host today and I'm here with one of our pastors, heather Mandela. Hey, heather, hi Ashley. So we are getting together today to talk, to continue our conversation that we started a couple of episodes ago, where we talked about listening for God, and that came out of a conversation of like hey, what are um like phrases that we hear others say or we say to others? Or we just exist in, like our church, not just our church, but in church like capital C church culture right.
Speaker 2:And what do they actually mean and how do we apply them to our lives? And so in talking about this episode, we kind of landed on the phrase do life together. Right, I feel like if you go to like any contemporary church, you will hear them say it's important to do life together and here's some ways you can do it.
Speaker 3:I say it all the time yes, and we mean it.
Speaker 2:We do Authentically and intentionally mean it because we know the value of it. But sometimes that can be a phrase that we're like. But what does that really?
Speaker 1:mean? What does that look like?
Speaker 3:How do you do it? How?
Speaker 2:do you do life? Yeah, and it can be one of those things that, like, when we talk about so, we talk about doing life with someone we you know. I think it's easy to think about like the fun things like. We want community to have fun with and to go to dinner with, and celebrate holidays with or celebrate graduations and those kinds of things with or um the mile markers yeah, exciting yeah or they're helpful in helping us like pick up our kids from school.
Speaker 3:Sure.
Speaker 2:Or those kinds of like little hiccups in our week. Sure, but we wanted to talk more about when doing life together actually means like it's messy being there in the gritty yes Of life when it gets, when things get hard and we either get to choose to like step towards each other in our vulnerabilities or exist in our kind of like nice, everything's fine yep, I was.
Speaker 3:You know, one of the things that kind of hit me was um, I follow, uh, dad chats who is? I love dad chats.
Speaker 2:If you are on tiktok or instagram and you've never dad chats, who is? I love dad chats. If you are on Tik TOK or Instagram and you've never seen dad chats and mom chats, they're fantastic.
Speaker 3:I love the two of them. They're amazing. So they are a married couple. They've got three kids, with one more on the way, and, um, he just recently lost a coworker, um, the his coworker, who was a uh, an acquaintance friend, passed away way too young and he was sharing about how, when his own father died, you know, people would say things that they meant to be comforting but that were just terrible, you know, and didn't bring comfort and that kind of triggered this whole discussion that we had been having for me.
Speaker 1:Cause I'm like.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, definitely. We see this all the time because we're uncomfortable and we don't know what to do when someone is sad.
Speaker 2:Right, and so we say things that we don't mean, and other people say things that they don't necessarily mean, but we want to say something, and then it just comes out weird.
Speaker 3:Yep, it just gets all twisted and uncomfortable, and it the whole thing's a mess, right, and so? So what are some of the things that we can do for each other and with each other when we are in crisis or in a hard period?
Speaker 2:need to do life not alone. So what were some? I refer to them as some platitudes that we offer each other. What are some that we often say that really don't help anyone?
Speaker 3:So I think I'll often hear and sometimes people say it about themselves, and sometimes people will say it to others, but it's you know, something bad or difficult has happened. And they'll say something like well, god must've known, I needed X Y or Z.
Speaker 3:Um, and that always stops me, because of course, god knows what we need. But the implication in that statement is that God is purposely putting you through some trial or hardship to, um, develop something Now that is not out of the realm of spiritual possibility. Right, it, absolutely. There are times that I think God puts obstacles in our path that we have to go around because it forces us to rely on him and to grow in our own understanding of who he is in our lives. But a lot of the time it's just life, yeah Right.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:So God did not necessarily, you know, with great direction and purpose, cause the lightning storm to hit the tree that fell down on your car. Now you have to get a new car. He allowed nature to take its course, and right now your car was in the course of nature. And so yeah he's going to be there with you as you wrestle with insurance companies and yada, yada, but he did not necessarily cause you to get cancer.
Speaker 2:Did he allow?
Speaker 3:it. Yeah, somewhere within his sovereign will, he said I'm going to let nature take its course. And right now we live in a fallen and broken world and we are constantly surrounded by things that cause sickness and illness to our bodies. And he knows that is a condition of the fall right. We're not living here forever with him and some of those conditions are harder to swallow than others of the fall right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. And I struggle with that one specifically because it makes me uncomfortable that, with the thought that, like, something awful is happening to you for the betterment of someone else, like that feels icky to me yeah, and it's, and here's the deal.
Speaker 3:And I think what where people get confused is that scripture does tell us you know that out of our own sorrows we can comfort others right. So, that once we've gone through something, we are better equipped to then help someone else walk through it. Those are marching orders.
Speaker 3:They're not cause and effect right, so God didn't cause it to happen to you so that you can help someone else. Our marching orders in life are as you go through things, you will be better equipped to help others. So there's a big difference between God's causing this to happen to me. God gave me cancer, God caused my car accident, whatever so that I could help you as you have cancer. No, there's a big difference between that and saying, hey, I have walked through this path and it's hard, and it's awful yeah, but I'm gonna walk through it with you yeah you're not alone yeah, um big difference.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. No, I definitely agree with that. Is there anything else like that that you thought of any other?
Speaker 3:sure. So there's always the like god won't give you more than you can handle right, I hate that one with a personal passion, because he absolutely will, if we can handle it all why do we need God?
Speaker 2:I can really resonate with that because I think everything that has made my life richer has been something that I didn't think I could handle, and I like to think of it when I'm a very visual person and so when I think about those kinds of things, I think a visualization of when, you like, build muscle, and it involves like tearing and building new Yep, you know, cells and muscle in your body and I think about how God has come through in the past. I know that it will like do something in me that will then like allow you to grow stronger if you embrace it.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Something new in my life, but it's definitely feels like more than I can handle right now, and that doesn't mean that I'm a weak person or my faith is not strong enough, whatever that means.
Speaker 3:Or you know, like, well, you just didn't pray enough. Ash, yeah, those are not our favorite expressions, and I agree with you. And the reality is that as we walk through life, there are situations that are bigger than us all the time, and God allows those situations and he will be with us through them. We just have to ask and he'll also put others us through them. We just have to ask and he'll also put others in our path. We just have to ask.
Speaker 3:Right. So yes, there are situations that are bigger than us a hundred percent, but we're not asked to carry it alone ever yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:Which leads us to a phrase that I really like that you've been using We've both been using often lately and it's the idea of being what we call a hope holder, so being there for someone else and holding hope for them when the really terrible, tough life stuff is happening.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and this is something that's interesting. I've been talking about it recently in some of my graduate classes for clinical mental health counseling and talking about the idea that you know, as therapists, you go into a room recognizing that there is or can be a positive outcome right From this, whatever situation our clients are bringing in, and that we can help them walk through it. But we don't walk into that meeting saying hey there is a great thing that's going to come out of this and you're going to be okay, right.
Speaker 2:Which is like our natural human inclination. Like we just want to make things better, like we have a hard time. Just sitting with. It sucks right now. It's hard right now and instead we we feel like we experienced the empathy of like my friend is having a really hard time right now and our desire is to just want to fix everything for them. But that's not always in our control.
Speaker 3:Most often is not Right, nor is it helpful, honestly, yeah. And in that again, going back to the content creator, dad chats, that's what he said Ultimately. He said I didn't really find peace around my father's death until I recognized, until somebody said to me this sucks Right and you're sad and it's okay.
Speaker 2:You can be sad and it can suck, yeah.
Speaker 3:And I'm going to sit here in the suckiness with you, right? Um, and he filmed, finally found peace in that and he found finally found peace in that, and that's hard for us to do as humans because we want to fix, but so often the best thing we can do is just be right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, because I mean, I often find that those are the in the just like Allowing ourselves to be present in whatever it is that we're being asked to be present in. Those are the places that I really feel like we see God, or you see the like, the whispers of grace, or like that's where I feel like a lot of that like faith happens, because you're not trying to solve it all as a human.
Speaker 3:Yep, yeah, we're recognizing that it's not something that we can fix with human hands. We're recognizing that this is something that takes time and that the Holy Spirit moves and heals and brings on, and it is it's complicated.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:And there is no platitude. That sums it up, and so you know it's. It's one of those things. One of the things I found really helpful when particularly in grief um, is when you can ask the person to tell them a little bit about the person they've lost.
Speaker 3:You know like this really sucks. This is so hard. Oh my gosh, I am so sorry I didn't know them. Well, what tell me about them? And it allows them to experience the positives about their missing loved one again, and they often are so grateful just to be able to talk about them.
Speaker 2:Because that's the hard thing and specifically in a grief situation, no one wants to talk about it because they're afraid it'll make you more sad and it's like I'm already sad. I'm already real sad.
Speaker 3:I don't want to bring it up, because what if you weren't thinking about it? Trust us, they were already thinking about it. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:So that makes me think about, like what does it look like when you're helping to hold hope for someone? Helping to hold hope for someone.
Speaker 3:And I do love that expression, because there are times in our lives, whether it is in grief and sickness, in loss, whatever it is there are times in our lives where we just feel at the end of ourselves, and that's when doing community is so important, because those people that we trust can come beside us and they can say this sucks, and I know it sucks. I'm outside this and I do know you will survive it.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:But I know it doesn't feel like that and it's okay.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but having people that can reflect back to you.
Speaker 3:Yep, I'm going to hold and literally I use that term with people all the time. I'm going to hold this for you until you're in the midst of anger, grief, whatever it is, and there's a reason. We walk through those emotions. We've got to acknowledge them and deal with them. But hope is still the ultimate outcome and I'm still going to hold hope for you because I know that God's going to work through this situation, this horrible, awful situation. If we allow God in, he wants to heal, he wants to move.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think there's like two parts to that. One is like if we are the person wanting to be there for someone, it requires of us a setting aside of our own like desires, so our desire to fix or make it better, and recognizing that what this person might need for me right now is a really hard thing, like they might need me to change my schedule tomorrow, or they might need me to make a phone call for them, or they might need me to have a hard conversation, or they might need me to just milk.
Speaker 1:They may need milk Like they might like it's.
Speaker 2:It's really is like the minutia of of our day-to-day lives that they might need us to walk with them in. And then the other side of that is, if I am someone who is really struggling and really going through something, that I have to also make the choice of letting people in.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Like not no, we're fine, we're good, we're good. Or you know, just like, oh, I don't want to bother anyone and that's our inclination.
Speaker 3:Right, we circle the wagons, we can take care of ourselves. Don't let the outside see how bad it is on the inside.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there's such a there's such an innate instinct in in so many of us to we don't want anyone else to like see what's going, see it's messy.
Speaker 3:And we've been told that shiny, happy, glittery people are what's expected and what is enjoyed. And sometimes we aren't shiny, glittery or happy. We are messy and yucky and dark, but that's as much part of the human condition.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, it makes me think about not every story. Maybe I don't have my Bible in front of me, but like so many stories that we cling to about Jesus, are Jesus seeing, touching, walking towards someone who is really messy and their life is like no one wants to look at their life Right and he wants to.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and this idea too, of the community. Like I love the image of the paralyzed man whose friends lower him down through the roof where Jesus is teaching Right. So, so it's this idea of being in community. Together, they were able to accomplish far more for that friend.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Um then he would have by himself. You know, they entered in. They didn't blame him for his situation, they didn't ignore him for his situation, they didn't offer him platitudes. They picked him up and carried him and when the crowd was too big, they cut a hole in the roof and lowered him down Like they were problem solvers.
Speaker 3:So incredible community coming together can exist. And it may not be. We're not literally picking people up and lowering them through the roof, but it might be, you know, jimmying somebody's car door open because they locked their keys in it, you know it might be whatever you know, there are things that we physically hold hope and bring hope to people in difficult circumstances.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and that just it just makes me think that that that it requires of us maybe to not be moving through life so quickly is something that just came to mind. Like um because then we, we like that's another place that I think some of those platitudes come out of is I want to be like God, I'll take care of it as I'm running past you because I want to go do my thing yeah exactly Move on to the next thing.
Speaker 3:Well, that, and I think too, it um, if we're able to say gosh. Well, you know, so-and-so clearly, clearly, god was working on something in them. You know, that's why this is happening. This is happening Cause God's going to teach them something yeah. Like they, from this and, yes, we all learn something from everything, but that's not the cause of it necessarily.
Speaker 2:That is one of those beauty from ashes God will bring things out of the bad but he didn't burn it to begin with, and someone's life difficulty is not your teaching moment.
Speaker 3:It is not and, if we're completely honest, it's a fear-based response, because what we're saying is I don't want this to happen to me. So there must be something you did that caused this to happen to you, because if I believe that, then I don't have to worry about it happening to me, right?
Speaker 2:And then. But then when it does happen to you, then you want to hide, because I everybody's going to think, like I did, that this is something I did, right.
Speaker 3:We mess it up so badly, so badly, which is one of the reasons why, like I, am a proponent of living my life out loud. You know, I'm a hot mess. I advertise it regularly. I you know. I don't hide it, because we all are, and if you're not, you're not telling the truth, right.
Speaker 2:No, but it's really. It's really true Like we all like to exist in our own separate, isolated bubbles. Yeah, right, like it's where, where none of it is true and we're messy we're messy, and that's okay.
Speaker 3:We're made from dust, you know, god, god formed us from dust. Yeah, and to you know, to dust we will return minus our spirits, which will? Be with god but you, you know, like this it's this idea of like yeah, we're messy and we don't get less messy.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:No, I have to learn to embrace the mess I love that Um, yeah, and I.
Speaker 2:it just makes me think about the times that I have chosen that, um, chosen to ask people to hold hope for me, chosen to ask people to like step in when I can't even just like. I've gone through seasons where I've had to ask people like I need you to pray this for me because I can't right now.
Speaker 3:Yep, oh, there have been times where I'm so emotionally drained, yeah, like I can't even talk to God about something, and that's where I'm literally like, uh, anything I say to God is me raging right now. So I'm going to need you guys to be lifting up X, y or Z, or I'm going to need you to be praying for my family. And I won't lie to you, praying for my family is is, ironically, one of the things I'm worst at. You wouldn't think that, but it is like I'll pray for everybody else and their brother till the cows come home, but I often my family is the last, for whatever reason.
Speaker 3:Maybe it's an intimacy thing, maybe it's just so raw, I don't know, but it is something that I will regularly say. Hey, can you guys be praying into this for me, because I know when I'm praying about it, I'm praying only from my perspective and. I need God's perspective, and so I have to ask other people to come around me and pray into it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean yeah, I would say. There's so many times that, like my, faith has been strengthened or saved because of other people's ability to hold it for me when I've been having a hard time, and coming because that to me is so important that they're holding it when you can't Right.
Speaker 3:So there are times in our lives where we are just angry this wasn't fair, it didn't go right, it's not what I wanted or expected, and I am angry at God and I am angry that it happened and that's okay. Yeah, god is big enough to handle your anger.
Speaker 2:I would say something like he can take it, I'll hold it for you. He can take it, I'm going to hold your hope.
Speaker 3:You can be angry. Talk to him about it though.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:You know being angry, don't go hide in a corner Right, yell rage, because God can handle that, and that's part of what the tangible part of holding hope is. We're going to send the text, we're going to stop by, we're going to go grab lunch and we're going to feel our community out so is today a day where we just need to be distracted?
Speaker 3:or is today a day where we need to process and we're going to allow space? That's part of what holding hope is we're going to allow space for that other person to lead the direction they need at that moment. You know, and we're going to be praying before, during and after those conversations that God would just be using us, yeah, to be his hands and feet, to be his comfort, to be his hands and feet, to be his comfort, to be his hope for them in those moments.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and so much of that goes back to listening for God, which we previously talked about a few episodes ago if you haven't listened to it.
Speaker 2:But it goes back to like, when we are tuned into where God is trying to get us to notice him in our lives, then I think that these are the things he points us to Like hey, I think you need to go talk to that person over there. Hey, I think you should check on that person. And you're like I don't really know why, oh yeah, but maybe I should. And then you do and you're like this is why.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you get that little niggle. I just had it the other day. Just got that little niggle like oh, I haven't talked to them in a while. I should really shoot them a text. And within like 30 seconds my phone rang and they were like how did you know?
Speaker 3:I absolutely need to talk to you today and so it's just, it's the holy spirit will be faithful to you know, put those people in our path to put those niggles in our brain, yeah, to prompt us, to push us, um, and then we just need to be faithful to follow through on them.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's really great. Well, thank you for sharing all of this with us on the podcast.
Speaker 2:And I think we're going to keep talking about some of these things in some other future episodes as well. But, as we said last time, if anything we've talked about today resonates with you or you say oh hey, I would really love to also have you guys or someone talk about this other phrase that I hear a lot and I think what does that really mean for me as a Christian? Feel free to email us at podcast, at meanhopeorg, and let us know so. Then we can see if it fits into all of our conversations we're having here about faith and hope. So that's it for today. If you like the Meet Hope podcast, I would encourage you to share it with a friend or family member. If you listen on Apple Podcasts, you can go in and give us five stars, because that's how we help other people find the podcast as well. And until next time, we hope that you have a really great day.
Speaker 1:And until next time. We hope that you have a really great day or find us on socials at meethopechurch.