This is episode four, finding hope. Do you struggle with letting negative experiences, keep you from future goods, feelings of despair at the state of the world. Or do you feel like you just can't find hope. And this episode, we are going to talk about the gift of forgetfulness. What it means to have hope and how to move forward when you are in despair. You are listening to persistence in prayer with Catholic mindset, coach. Kylie Hein.
What's your superpower? My husband and I joke sometimes that I think my superpower is short-term memory loss,
Every time we talk about having more kids, or I will joke about, hey, you wanna get a little risky with N F P and used phase one. He gives me this look. Like, have you forgotten? Have you forgotten everything that goes into. Having more children, specifically what pregnancy is like, and I think about it, I'm like, well, yeah, it was pretty miserable, but I think I could do it again. And I love to see his reaction because he gets so worked up and it's not because he doesn't want more children.
It's not because we aren't open to life. It's because I had really, really miserable pregnancies. My husband likes to remind me, Hey, do you remember when you were pregnant and you literally woke up and cried every morning on the couch until you absolutely had to leave for work? And then you would go to work and force yourself through the day and come home and be best friends with the toilet for the rest of the night? Do you remember when the only thing you ate was leftover cheesy potatoes?
Ramen noodles because that's the only thing that you could cook in the microwave in less than five minutes. And anything that took longer that than that was never gonna happen. But if you didn't eat, you'd get even more sick. So you'd force yourself to eat and then you'd curl up on the bathroom floor for hours on end, or during your second pregnancy when we had a toddler at home and you'd get home from.
Rush to the bathroom and our toddler would come in and cover you up with a towel and rub your back and say, it's okay, mommy, you can just throw up in the potty. It's okay. Do you remember that? And I'll think back and I'll giggle because it's not that I forgot, I mean, in a way, but it's like the Lord gives us this way of moving past these really awful.
In the rewards of life in our kids and seeing those beautiful moments and their smiles and their giggles and all of the things and the nine months of hell and that's, I, there's no other words for pregnancy for me. Um, absolutely hell is worth it. And you kind of forget. He gives you this beautiful gift. at least he does for me, and I say all this because there are a lot of really crappy things going on in our world right now.
We are surrounded by negativity and really awful times, but there's so much beauty that the Lord can help us. Just forget for a moment. Reminds us that there are two different things that we can choose to focus on. We can focus on the negativity, we can focus on the awful feelings.
We can focus on the puking and the living on the bathroom floor, or we can focus on life and laughter and use those moments to get us through all of the You know, I had a friend, um, not too terribly long ago, remind me that our suffering is not wasted by God. And I think that's such an important thought to keep in the forefront of our mind, is that suffering is never wasted by the Lord. And in fact, he invites us into suffering and it's a beautiful way to learn to love.
It's when those hurricanes come sometimes that God is giving us an opportunity to detach from something that we are attached to. It's an opportunity to turn to him and to trust and to have hope, and to go all in and. Just, I think of, um, the quote by St. Josephine, Nikita, whatever happens to me, I'm awaited by love, and so my life is good. Whatever happens, we don't have to worry. We know if we have faith that at the end of this life we have eternal life.
And no matter what happens on this, That is where our fulfillment will come. Now, I know that's a lot easier said than done. Of course we're gonna worry, right? As a mother, I have worries about my children. We worry about if our kids are gonna come home from school safely. We can worry about if we're gonna be able to put food on the. we can worry about who's gonna be the next president, right?
There are a million things every single day that we can choose to worry about, or we can remember that God is merciful and that he's going to hear our prayer, and that if we pray and have faith, we will have hope. And if we have hope, there is nothing. to worry about for faith is the prerequisite of hope. So if you can have faith, you'll have hope. And if you have hope, then you will not have worry.
I've had several people come up to me lately talking about the despair that they've been feeling, or this just lack of hope in society, in our culture, in the way that the world is going. Um, a small business owner came up to me recently and said, That it seems like every day more and more people are coming into their store and saying that they're really just struggling with a lack of hope, and I got to thinking about this. What is, what does that mean?
So Webster's definition of hope is a feeling of expectation and a desire for a certain thing to happen. When we have a lack of hope, that means that we are lacking this feeling that something specific is gonna happen, and a lack of hope can come from a lot of different things. I think if you turn on the news for more than five minutes, at any point in time, you're probably going to feel a lack of hope. There is this constant bombardment of all of the negative that is going on in our.
it's, it's hard to watch. It's hard to hear, and I think about all of these messages that we're getting. There's political divide, there is divide in our school systems, there's divide in our workplaces, and we really just have to be aware of. what we are filling our mind with and how we are choosing to move forward in our lives. If you're a human being at some point in your life, you are going to feel a little bit of despair. You are probably going to have sometimes where you don't feel hope.
And so I think the question is what do you do with that? And how do you move forward when you feel like there is no hope? So first of all, I wanna say. you have to understand what hope is, and I'm gonna give you a different definition that is not from Webster. Hope is the maturity of faith. Hope is knowing that God is going to show up and not knowing how. So this really brings about the question, if hope is knowing that God is gonna show up and not knowing how.
How can you have hope if you don't have God? And my honest answer is, I don't know that you can. So there's a reason that our world is in such a place of hurt, right? It's because there are so many who don't e believe in God. And if you don't believe in God, you don't have hope. And if you don't have hope, well it sure is hell gonna be hard to get outta bed in the morning.
So that's where those of us who do have faith in the Lord and and do have hope, we have to just keep praying and keep persevering and showing up and doing everything we can to inspire those around us and bring them the. So that they can eventually get to that place where they know that God is there and where they can be convicted and transformed and renew their lives because without that, they really don't have anything.
And we can see that in the world that we are living in, we can see that in the state of our society. I. That's not to say that those of us who have faith are never gonna feel hopeless because we know that's not true. Now, I know that that's easy to say when you're in a place in your life where you have hope, but when you're feeling really discouraged and down, it's a lot harder to get yourself out of that place. And I've really been reflecting on that.
I've actually been putting this particular podcast off for a while, even though I was asked to talk about hope and despair, um, because. It's so hard when you're in, like I said, it's that short term memory loss. Like when you're in that place of like happiness and positivity and good, it's easy to look at someone else and say, oh, well just like pull yourself out of it. Think, think happy thoughts. But when you're in it, it's so different.
And so I felt like I had to wait a little while until I was back in that place of despair a little bit in. spiritual dryness so that I could remember what that felt like. And really zero in on how do I get myself out of that? How, what does it feel like to be there and how do you move forward? And so this weekend was really great reminder for me. Uh, I had been feeling a little down, but not really recognizing why I'm not, I have a cold, not a big.
but it hit me like it always does out of nowhere that it was the two year anniversary of my dad passing away and my dad passed from colon cancer and I had already lost my mother prior to that. Um, and so I know that when those anniversaries come, There's sometimes in the back of my mind, I don't usually even recognize the dates or anticipate them coming up.
I don't have worry about that, but it always seems like when those dates hit, I'll be like halfway through the day, three quarters of the way through the day, and all of a sudden I'm like, oh my goodness. I just feel like I'm in this place. Like I'm just, I'm tired. I don't wanna get outta bed. And it's just that grief is hit. And so it's recognizing. I'm feeling down and a little hopeless and oh yeah, it's the anniversary of a parent passing.
That's hard and it can take me a little while to pull myself out of that sometimes because it's important to acknowledge that that's where I'm at. And it's important that when you are in that situation to acknowledge what is happen. Why are you feeling the way that you are feeling? But as I always say, once you recognize those thoughts, you have a choice of what to do with that thought afterward. Okay, so how do we solve this problem of a lack of hope in ourselves, in the people around us?
I think that one place to start is by filling our mind with good things. I know that every morning when I wake up, it's gonna be quiet in the house, but when my husband wakes up, he's gonna turn on the TV and he's going to turn on the news. And I know that that is not great for me for my mental health because after about five minutes I've listened to all the negativity that I can, and I am full of things to pray for and people to pray for.
which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but I know that I can only listen to so much of that day in and day out before it starts to fill me with angst and anxiety and worry over things that are out of my control. So I'm not saying don't be informed, but I am saying monitor what is going into your mind. Monitor what you are allowing in, and if you find yourself in a constant place of worry. it's probably time for you to disconnect from some of those media outlets.
It's probably time for you to unfollow some people on social media or a lot of people. Anyone that doesn't fill you with positivity and hope and joyful things, and doesn't mean it has to be forever. It doesn't mean you shouldn't be informed, but allow your mind to reset and your heart to recenter on the. before you start to bring those things back, or maybe you don't bring 'em back.
To be honest for me, and this is what works for me personally, I get a lot of my information from my husband because he enjoys that kind of stuff. He likes researching. He likes to get information from all different types of places to make sure that he is informed and educated, and if I need to know something, he fills me in.
Um, if something majors happen, obviously I, I might go investigate that a little bit more, but I try to fill my mind with good quality things and I know that I am a, what, a hundred percent in a better place. When I don't watch tv, I watch very, very little tv and when I do, I usually regret it because those are things that are filling up my head when I go to have my prayer time. Wanna quiet my mind and my mind is still reeling with all of these images and things that I saw.
So if you are gonna watch something, if you are gonna listen to something, make sure that it's something positive. Uh, I love watching movies about the Saints. I love watching the Chosen. If I'm gonna sit down and watch something, I haven't even seen all of the episodes because that's how limited I am on my TV time. Um, those are things that help orient me, like orient my mind and help uplift my heart and soul to the Lord and ignite my imagination in a positive way, not in a negative way.
Uh, obviously spend time in prayer and reading God's word. There are so, so many scriptures that talk about hope, that talk about not fear. Um, Romans 1212, rejoice in hope, endure in affliction, and persevere in prayer. You can spend so much time on that, just rejoice in hope. And our hope comes from our faith and our trust in the Lord endure in affliction. So what is the affliction that is on your heart right now? What is the affliction that is hurting you, that is causing this pain and.
take that to prayer and be persistent and persevere in taking it to the Lord. And tell the Lord very specifically what it is that you need, and invite him in and ask for the hope or the faith or the trust that you need so that you can make it through that tough time. And even if you don't feel a response, know that he hears you and trust that that grace is going to. And keep that at the forefront of your mind that the grace is yet to come. The grace is yet to come.
He will give it to you when you need it and not before. Um, another really great one to reflect on is Isaiah. For you, 31, they hope in the Lord will renew their strength. I think that's pretty straightforward. It's very simple. It's an easy one to memorize. I'll say it again. They that hope in the Lord will renew their. That's where you, that's where you find your hope in your strength is in the Lord.
Another, um, way that I think we can find hope and also instill hope in others is through community. We have to have community. When Covid hit and everyone was isolated and shut down, many people lost that sense of community. They lost. Quality conversations and those connections with people. And it's kind of been tough to build it back.
I know I see, um, a functional medicine doctor for some health issues and she has told me numerous times that she used to only see AC older adults later in their life. And now she's seen kids as young as six and seven years old with tummy problems. anxiety with stress, and she said, so many people are still suffering from these anxieties and these fears that arose when we were, everything was closed down with covid and people weren't able to have those connections, and we have to have that.
It's so essential. It's essential for our kids and it's essential for us as adults too. So reach. to people in your churches. Reach out to online communities that are full of people. One of the most beautiful things that I've gotten out of coaching is the Catholic coaching community and the people that I know I can reach out to and say, Hey, can you pray for me? Can you pray for this situation? Um, it's so incredible how willing people are to step up and to help you and sometimes.
Easier to be vulnerable with a stranger than it is someone who maybe you're close to or you aren't comfortable sharing. Um, that's not necessarily a bad thing to have to reach out to someone else. I think even in spiritual direction, my spiritual director is not someone who's in my community. Uh, it just makes it a little bit easier to open up and be vulnerable because that's not someone that you're gonna.
Walking out on the street, it's someone who, um, you obviously have to trust and build a relationship with, but it just kind of opens up a different type of connection. And that leads me perfectly into my next, uh, recommendation, which is to get coached. Catholic coaches are trained to help you process your emotions and prosecute.
And if you are having condemning thoughts or things that are leading to worry and despair, those are things that we can help you through because those thoughts are triggering emotions. You might not recognize the thought, but you're surely feeling an emotion, and we can help you identify the thought behind it, and then you get to choose whether you want to keep that thought or whether that thought is worth release.
and we can help you invite the Lord in and discern where it is that the truth lies and help you get back on the track to, um, the faith and the hope that you need. Spiritual direction is so huge. I know spiritual directors can be really hard to find. Um, my most recent spiritual director I prayed for for two years. you just have to be persistent in all things. Pray to the Lord he hears you, but he wants to hear from you. He wants you to ask.
So ask and be very specific and ask again and again and again, and he will provide. And so just pray for what you need and move forward as if it's already been granted and it's already been given. Yes, God's gonna give it. And if you are showing up and you are intentional with the way that you are living your life, if you are following the Lord's commands and placing your trust in him, the hope is gonna come. And you don't have anything to despair. Yes, there are things in this life that are.
There are things in this life that are uncertain and unknown, but they're out of our control anyway, so we might as well just release him to the Lord and surrender. The surrender Novena is another opportunity for you to invite the Lord in and hand everything over to him. It is such an incredible prayer. I've mentioned it before in the podcast. This is one that my four year old likes to pray with. and we actually prayed it just tonight.
He asked me last night if we could start the surrender novena again. Um, and if you really read through the wording in there and the Lord saying like, if you hand this over, you can't worry. That's not surrendering. If you are still continuing to worry. And so you just have to let it. I am the absolute worst at handing some feet over to the Lord. I mean like, wait, wait, wait. I just, I wanna snatch that back cuz I want control.
But when you give him control, he can do infinitely more with it than you ever could. And you are always gonna fail and he will always succeed. So you might as well just hand it over, lay it at his feet and all good things are going to come. Lastly, I'm gonna leave you with a quote from Saint John Paul ii if you know anything about his life. He was someone who knew great suffering, um, who very easily could have been lost in hopelessness and never recovered.
He lost his mother at a very young age. He lost his sibling. His father died. His life was full of oppression, and even in his papacy, he underwent extreme amounts of suffering. He underwent an assassination attempt, he. He lived with a lot of pain. He has incredible, incredible writings on suffering and how we can come to love through suffering. One of the many, many quotes that see Hope John Paul II has is this, never give up on hope. Never. Never tire and never become discouraged.
Be not afraid. We know that the Lord will prevail and we know that all of these holy saints and angels are looking out and watching over us, and when we need inspiration, these are the perfect people to turn. the Saints have lived some of the most horrific lives that we can possibly imagine. They have sacrificed. They have suffered. They have had the martyrs have deaths that I cannot even wrap my mind around. And yet they were joyful and they were joyful.
because they were close to the Lord and they were joyful because they knew that they were serving the Lord and they knew that this life was only a stepping stone, and that is what we have to live for. It is not for this life, but it is for the next. And when we have hope in the next, everything here becomes easy. I hope you can remember that the problem is not a lack of hope. It's forgetting where to place our trust and our faith. So put your faith in the Lord. Fill your mind with good things.
Spend time in prayer. Read the scriptures time and time again. The Lord tells us, be not afraid, do not worry, do not fear God always keeps us promise. Just lay everything at his feet, surrender, and I promise those hard days are going to get easier. You are going to get through and everything. Everything. God is gonna make it good. He's going to take it and make it exponentially better. So lay it out. I know it's hard sometimes. I've been there, but you've got this cuz the Lord has you.