Hope

"Once you choose hope, anything's possible."  ~Christopher Reeve

I Cannot Find My Way (Michael McLean)
http://youtu.be/a41wPG6AqeI

Hope. It is a simple four letter word, but it has profound meaning and impact. Hope, like the bright star on that first Christmas night, brings light into our lives and gives us the desire to continue on. Hope gives us the desire to develop to our full potential; to "never stop improving" (as the Lowe's commercial ad encourages us). Hope guides us toward our ultimate destination. Hopelessness, it's opposite, leads us to despair and defeat. Those without hope usually feel they have nothing left to live for. Hopelessnes is usually the precurser to depression, despair, self-destruction and sometimes to suicide.

Did you know that:

Women attempt suicide three times as often as men.

The higher rate of attempted suicide in women is attributed to the elevated rate of mood disorders among females, such as major depression, dysthymia and seasonal affective disorder.

Although women attempt suicide more often, men complete suicide at a rate four times that of women.

More women than men report a history of attempted suicide, with a gender ratio of 2:1.

Firearms are now the leading method of suicide in women, as well as men.

Suicide is more common among women who are single, recently separated, divorced, or widowed.

The precipitating life events for women who attempt suicide tend to be interpersonal losses or crises in significant social or family relationships.

Many women who suffer from manic-depressive illness experience their first episode in the postpartum period.

Sixty percent to 80 percent of women experience transient depression, and 10 percent to 15 percent of women develop clinical depression during the postpartum period.

Between the mid-1950s and the late 1970s, the suicide rate among U.S. males aged 15-24 more than tripled (from 6.3 per 100,000 in 1955 to 21.3 in 1977). Among females aged 15-24, the rate more than doubled during this period (from 2.0 to 5.2). The youth suicide rate generally leveled off during the 1980s and early 1990s, and since the mid-1990s has been steadily decreasing.

The suicide rates for men rise with age, most significantly after age 65.

The rate of suicide in men 65+ is seven times that of females who are 65+.

The suicide rates for women peak between the ages of 45-54 years old, and again after age 75.

Women are more likely than men to have stronger social supports, to feel that their relationships are deterrents to suicide, and to seek psychiatric and medical intervention, which may contribute to their lower rate of completed suicide.

 (http://www.afsp.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=home.viewPage&page_id=04ECB949-C3D9-5FFA-DA9C65C381BAAEC0)

So, how do we find hope? What do we hope for? Why do we even care?

I had a friend who told me that he had once considered suicide. As he contemplated whether to take his own life or not, he determined that if he really had enough guts to commit suicide then he had enough guts to keep going and pull himself out of whatever it was that was making him feel suicidal; to change either himself or his circumstances for the better.

That's why we need hope. Hope leads to faith. Faith in ourselves, faith in a higher being, faith in our fellow men and women and hope for a better world. Faith leads to action and action leads to change. We don't always see the changes and the changes don't always come overnight. In fact, they usually come in miniscule amounts and take a long time to happen, but they do come. Hope and faith can lead to joy. Joy in coming to understand who we are, why we are here and what we can become as we strive to reach our fullest potential.

I have a wooden Christmas ornament in the shape of a star that hangs above my kitchen sink in front of my window. In the center of the star is a rotating circular cutout that contains the word "hope". Did you know that the star is the symbol of hope? Are you making the connection? On that Christmas night so long ago, when that bright star shone and lit the way for the shepherds and the wise men to find their way to the Christ Child, hope was born. Each year as we celebrate the Christmas season and remember the Christmas story, hope is born again; and with this hope we are better able to find our way through this mortal life.  As we follow the light of the star, with it's hopeful rays, we can eventually find our ultimate destination.  Because of hope we come to believe in and understand who we truly are and reach our full potential. Hope is the beginning of "be(ing) the change we want to see in the world" (Ghandi).

"Believe in God; believe that he is, and that he created all things, both in heaven and in earth; believe that he has all wisdom, and all power, both in heaven and in earth; believe that man doth not comprehend all the things which the Lord can comprehend." Mosiah 4:9 (The Book of Mormon)

"Now the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that ye may abound in hope, through the power of the Holy Ghost." Romans 15:13 (Holy Bible, King James Version)

Hope Is Born Again (Jim Brickman and Point of Grace)
http://youtu.be/H_dXbubKSAo