Hope for the Hopeless

Several years ago a lady in the church I was serving suggested to a young woman that she come and speak with me.  The young woman who came to my office that day was one of the most despondent individuals I have ever met.  She was in fact suicidal.  Unfortunately she left much as she came and soon disappeared from sight.  As I think about her today I can only pray that wherever she may be that life is very different than that day she idled into my office.

Among the reasons why I will never forget my meeting with this hopeless young woman was her name.  You guessed it!  Yes, her name was Hope.  Her name was Hope bur she was utterly hopeless.  Her name suggested a life spring of forward facing faith but alas she was plowing the dust with her chin.  The name her parents gave her seemed now only a cruel joke played on an unsuspecting child.  Hope was hopeless with no expectation that anything would ever be different.

My young friend is a parable of sorts.  Our planet is crowded with many a hopeless individual.  Some bear all the tell tale signs of deep depression.  The sagging eyes, drooped head, bowed posture, whispered tones and pale colors testify to hopelessness.   For most however one must be much more observant.  Heads held high, confident if not cocky voices, bold colors and fast paced lives mask a quiet but real hopelessness.  Eating away at the core of the soul like an ever growing family of termites is the gnawing question, “Is there anything more to life than this?”

Never forget that men in Brooks Brothers suits commit suicide as often as the forgotten souls on skid row.  And yes, ladies living in posh homes in tony neighborhoods end it all with a bottle of pills just like their counterparts in the trailer park or housing project.  Let’s face it – hopelessness is an equal opportunity offender stalking people in all walks of life.  Maybe you’ve been to that dreary country.  Maybe you’re there now.  Certainly you know those who wander aimlessly in the wasteland of weariness.

This rampant hopelessness gave birth to the motto for Union Baptist Church: “Where hearts and homes find hope!”  Hope is a magnet drawing the metal in the rich and poor, literate and illiterate, known and unknown to Christ and His church.  People are not looking for another set of rules and regulations nor do they need more places to be and deadlines to meet.  But hope – well, they’re searching passionately for that.  Hope is fresh bread for the famished and living water for the spiritually dehydrated.  Hold out hope and people will come!

Now when they come they come with all the attendant baggage of those who have no hope.  Hopeless folk have sexual bondages, beverage breath, too many pill bottles and a boat load of secrets but they also come in the more socially acceptable wrappings of materialism and self-centeredness.  Houses of hope quickly fill up with the hopeless and all their stuff!  Isn’t this what church is supposed to be?  “Where hearts and homes find hope!” – may it be more than a slogan here, now and forever!