Episode 67: Finding Hope in the Hard
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Lynnette: [00:00:00] Hello friends, welcome back to the Stand with Lynnette and Elise podcast, because we have Elise with us today. Elise is my daughter. If you haven't listened to her previous episodes and she joins me every few weeks here on the podcast and today we are going to talk about something that she chose because this is how I like to roll when I have guests on the podcast, including my daughters, they get to choose what we talk about.
So Elise, what is this podcast going to be about?
Elise: It is going to be about hope. Hope has been something that's been on my mind a lot lately. Over the past couple months, it's something that I've studied a lot and talked with other people about a lot. And so I figured we could talk about hope, which is like a super broad topic, but something very good.
Lynnette: It is very good. And I think that this is relevant to so many people. I don't know about you, but I know so many people right now who are just in the middle of [00:01:00] really hard. And some that just cannot catch a break. It's like one thing after another, after another. And sometimes when you're in a space like that, it's hard to find hope because it doesn't feel like anything that you're doing is helping your situation, or you just kind of feel stuck or trapped or powerless to change whatever is happening.
And it can feel really overwhelming. Can you relate to that feeling, Elise?
Elise: 100%. I've had different times in my life where everything just feels overwhelming and not with anything crazy, but just normal things of life, like school and work and all that good stuff. Life changes and, trying to find hope in the midst of that has always been a struggle for me.
Hence why I've been studying it so much these past few months. So I'm super excited to share. Some of the things that I've learned and some of the things that have helped me.
Lynnette: Sweet. Okay. Well, let's jump in. Where do you want to [00:02:00] start?
Elise: There is a scripture that one of my friends sent me. Right after I came home from my mission, I came home from my mission in mid November and right now it's the beginning of April.
So I've been home for a little while, but right when I got home I was talking to one of my friends that is still on the mission and they sent me this scripture. And talked about how they've been struggling with hope and this is something that they learned. And I didn't really realize that I was struggling with hope until they talked about it with me.
So the scripture is Alma 22: 16, and it says. "But Aaron said unto him, If thou desirest this thing, if thou wilt bow down before God, yea, if thou wilt repent of all thy sins, and wilt bow down before God, and call on his name in faith, believing that ye shall receive, then shalt thou receive the hope which thou desirest."
And I loved that scripture so much. My friend sent me a whole voice clip just talking about how they've been struggling with hope, how that scripture really stood out to them. And it [00:03:00] inspired a scripture study for me that was all centered around hope. And I realized that that was something that I was really struggling with because right when I got home from my mission, I did not want to come home from my mission.
My last couple months of being in Washington were the best months of my mission. And I was so upset that It happened right at the end and that my whole mission had been so difficult, but those two months at the end were so good and I just did not want to leave. And so when I came home and I just had this awkward period of time before I went to school, but after I come home and I just didn't know what to do, like I wasn't working, I wasn't doing missionary work.
I didn't have any friends that were left in my hometown. It was really, really a struggle for me. And I was just kind of had a very bleak outlook on everything that was going to happen in the future. I didn't want to move up to school. I didn't want to start working. I didn't want to have homework. All I wanted was to be back on my mission.
And when they sent me that scripture, it just, helped me to realize that hope is something that I need more [00:04:00] in my life and something that I really was lacking at the time, especially. And I love how the verse talks about bowing down before God, calling on his name in faith. And that's how you receive hope.
And I just think that that's so powerful because it shows that we really have to be humble. We have to exercise humility. He Grants it to us. I love especially the word receive because it implies that hope is a gift to us. And it's not something that we can necessarily come up with on our own It's something that we have to partner with the Lord in order to have but it's something so necessary for us
Lynnette: I have never thought about it in that way. That word receive is so powerful. Like I said, when things are really hard, it's hard to to come up with that hope on our own, but we don't have to according to this verse.
The Lord can give that to us and we just need to receive it. That's great insight.
Elise: Yeah, and it's cool [00:05:00] because the more that I studied about hope, I read so many different articles and talks and scriptures and everything. And I don't quite remember who said this or where this came from. I think it was an article that I found on the church website, but it just talked about how hope is a gift and that gift comes because we've made a covenant with God.
And so, like, we promise him these things and he promises us the gift of the Holy Ghost. And through the Holy Ghost is how we receive hope. And so, it's cool to know that because we are children of the covenant, because we are covenant keepers, because we've made covenants, and those promises are so binding, and we uphold our end, and then we just have to trust that he's gonna uphold his end.
And yeah. In doing that, we get to gain the hope that comes from Jesus Christ. And it's like something so broad that I still try to wrap my mind around just that we gain hope through the Savior but especially through our covenants. [00:06:00] But I think it's so cool because the covenants that we've made are so binding that we know that we can trust in them.
And if we can trust in those, we can trust in God. And if we can trust in God, then we can have hope, which I think is awesome.
Lynnette: I have been thinking so much about covenants recently, and I just started working as an ordinance worker at the temple a few months ago, and so maybe that's inspired even more thought about covenants and what that actually means.
And I haven't thought of hope as a gift that we receive through covenants. But that makes so much sense because what I have been thinking a lot about is how much power we gain from our covenants. And that power is priesthood power. And that power is God's power. And he gifts that to us because we are willing to get in that yoke with him and to enter into that covenant. And we know that he's never [00:07:00] going to get out of the yoke forever.
We might. We might decide to at some point, but he's never going to break that covenant. And the power and the hope, like you said, that's a, that's a new one for me. I didn't necessarily put that together that comes through those covenants. I'm just starting to kind of scratch the surface of how powerful our covenants are.
Elise: Definitely. And I, as well, I'm still trying to like more deeply understand covenants and how the power can apply to me individually and into my life. But I love the thought that like we can just trust in the Lord and His promises and the covenant is, any covenant that we make is the strongest kind of promise.
But just knowing that the Lord, He keeps his promises and he is a promise keeper and that's something that has been shown. You know all throughout the time that you could always rely on the Lord. You can always know that [00:08:00] what he promises us is sure. And so especially our covenant promises are something sure, something that we can rely on. And I just know that it's been really cool to study that as time has gone on, as my understanding of covenant starts to deepen and just know that because we've made a covenant with the Lord, because we're bound to Him, no matter what happens in this life, we're still bound to Him in this life and in the life to come.
And so if nothing else, that is something to look forward to.
Lynnette: Yes, there's always hope just in that alone. But sometimes that doesn't feel super hopeful when we're in the middle of something really hard. It's like, how do we change how we feel right now? How do we gain that hope right now and not just hope ultimately someday maybe things will get better because of our covenant?
Elise: Yes, 100 percent because that's the thing that I struggle with the most is like, because [00:09:00] in the gospel, there's Like a huge part of the gospel is you make covenants with the Lord. After you've made covenants with the Lord, then what do you do? Then it's just left to, you're left to endure to the end. And it's like, okay, so enduring to the end is going to last the rest of my life and beyond, basically, until I get to meet the Savior again.
And that seems like a really long time to have to endure to the end. And enduring can have such a negative connotation. That word of just like, getting through, like, gritting your teeth, pushing through. When in reality it's something that should be hopeful and joyful but it's so hard in the moment when you're just enduring to the end and it just seems so tedious and so many burdens and so many trials and you're just like okay well yeah I know that the end is gonna be great. I know it's gonna be so awesome to see the Savior again but like what am I supposed to do in the meantime? How am I supposed to have hope for something that could be like so many years? So that's something that I've also been thinking [00:10:00] about a lot, because as this semester, this past semester has been so difficult in so many ways for me, and it's been so hard to maintain hope, which I was struggling with.
Like studying about this before I even came up to college, in that time after my mission and before school, and I recognized in that time frame that I needed more hope. But as the semester has gone on, it's only been harder to maintain hope because it's just thing after thing keeps happening. And there's good things happening too but it always seems like the bad outweighs the good. And so I think that just recently in the past few weeks I've just come to the realization that I need to exercise more faith in turn with exercising more hope and how those two things come together. And I've been trying to study that and having faith in the Lord and versus having hope in the future, and just things like that. And it's been eye opening, and helps me to have more hope in the moment while also [00:11:00] having hope in the future So it all just kind of ties in together, I guess
Lynnette: Hmm.
I love that. A couple of things that you said kind of stood out to me. One being the connotation of enduring to the end can feel like awful sometimes. Because when you're in the middle of something hard, the fact of enduring this thing forever, like it just feels so bleak. But one thing that came to mind when you said that was sometimes it's like moment by moment, or hour by hour, or day by day, and it's like, okay, we're not going to think about enduring until the end of time.
We're going to think about enduring for the end of this day, until the end of this day, or until the end of this hour, sometimes, or this minute, sometimes, just depending on, on what's happening. It doesn't have to be so far out in the future that we feel like, well, maybe someday I will have joy, but this day is too hard, and I can't even think about that.
But even just little increments of [00:12:00] endurance, but also realizing that we can, if we're looking, find joy in the middle of the hard. But like you said, sometimes it feels like the negative outweighs the positive. And it really is easy to feel that because negative is heavy and positive is light. And the heaviness is gonna pull us down just naturally, and so it takes effort and and work and mental energy to look for the positive and to look for the good in any situation.
But I love that President Nelson has taught us that through Jesus Christ, we can choose joy. And it is a choice that we have to make. Like I said, sometimes minute by minute or hour by hour. And I don't think that means that we ignore the hard stuff and just have a Pollyanna attitude and just pretend that nothing is wrong because that's actually not going to be helpful. But just to realize that God has not abandoned us in our [00:13:00] moment of need.
Just because things are hard, that doesn't mean he has gone away somewhere.
Elise: Definitely. So one of my very favorite talks is by Hank Smith, and it's like a devotional, and it's just called Be of Good Cheer. And I've listened to it so many times, and it's so funny because he just talks about the commandment of being of good cheer, and how it's like the most frequently broken commandment. Because we've been commanded to, to be of good cheer in all things, but it's so hard because when we're going through, you know, a huge trial or even a small trial, it's just so easy to be like, Oh, this is so hard. And I wish I wasn't having to deal with it.
But something that I love that he says in the talk is that being of good cheer, isn't having that Pollyanna attitude. Otherwise that would be scary. Like if you never recognizing that anything was hard and just thinking that everything was so amazing all the time, that would just be being naive and you wouldn't be dealing with it the correct way.
[00:14:00] And so he talks about recognizing that things are hard, but still having hope for the future. And that's how you can continue to be. And I love how you talked about enduring to the end of the day. That's something that I learned a lot on my mission in those really hard times where it's like, I can't even think about next week. I can't even think about tomorrow. All I can do is like, look at our schedule for today and mentally prepare myself for how I'm going to get through the rest of this day.
And I think having hope in the now is such an important part of having hope in the future, because if you just think about how great things are going to be in the future, and how awful things are now. And just be like, well, someday I'm going to get to that good thing, instead of like trying to have hope for today and tomorrow, then I think you'll just get stuck in a good things will come instead of a good things are happening now mindset, which I catch myself falling into. All this time.
Lynnette: I love that.
It just made me think of, [00:15:00] think of this experience that I had. I may have shared it in an earlier episode of the podcast. So if I have, I share things so many places, I don't know what I've shared where, but if you've heard it, bear with me. But I was thinking back to when I hiked the Grand Canyon with my husband's, your father, Elise, and I mean, it's a 23 and a half mile hike.
It's got almost 6, 000 feet of elevation gain at the end of the hike, which makes it even harder. And. Greg, my husband, was, was struggling, even just walking on flat ground across the bottom of the Canyon because his feet were just hurting so bad. And so he knew what was coming with the almost 6, 000 feet of elevation gain on the way out of the Canyon.
And we got to this part where we had just barely started the ascent to the top of the, of the South Rim. We look up and way up high, there's like these little people that look like [00:16:00] ants and he's like, oh my gosh, is that where we have to go? Because he was barely putting one foot in front of the other and we had just barely started this ascent. And I knew because I had hiked it before that not only did we have to go there, we had to go way beyond there, right?
And so I told him, I'm like, don't, don't look up. Just the only step that matters right now is the one that is right in front of you. And that's how we got up and we got to that point and he looked down and I'm like, remember when we were down there and you looked up here and said, there's no way I can get to that place.
Well, look, we did it one step at a time. And then, of course, we had to go further than that. But that experience has come to my mind in times, like I remember one time specifically where I was struggling with something and I'm just like, I don't know how I'm gonna do this. And the Lord put my exact words that I said to him into my mind.
Lynnette, the only step that matters is the one right in front of you. Do not [00:17:00] look up. Only look right in front of you. And I think that's good advice if we're going through something hard. How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time. How do you get out of a canyon? One step at a time. How do you overcome a trial? One day or one moment at a time.
Elise: I love that. It's so true because and I think it ties in a lot to how hope and faith come together. How they work hand in hand because so many times we are asked to step into the dark. We have no idea what our next step is or what the next step after our next step is and so all we can do is take the first step that we know we can take. And then after that just have faith that the Lord is going to lead us in the right direction. And I think that that just shows how in order to have hope we have to have faith, enough faith to take this step But along with that like the hope that something good is lying at the end of our path [00:18:00] is what helps us take that faith filled step and to act upon our faith. And so it's just cool to see how the two of them do work together and how we need both In order to actually progress in anything really.
Lynnette: Yeah, we talk about that, those two hand in hand a lot. Well, in Moroni chapter seven, it's all about faith, hope, and charity, faith, hope, and charity. They all work hand in hand, but how do you know where one ends and the next begins? And that can, maybe you don't necessarily need to know where one ends and the next begins, rather just to know that they all work together.
Elise: Mm hmm.
Definitely. That actually reminds me of a quote that I read. It's from President Nelson from a talk that he gave a while ago. And he's talking about how faith, hope, and charity all tie together because in Moroni chapter 7 it talks all about how you need faith to have hope and hope to have faith and both of those to have charity and, and I just love what he says, he says, [00:19:00] "These three attributes are intertwined like strands in a cable and may not always be precisely distinguished. Together they become our tether to the celestial kingdom."
And I think that that's so powerful because it's so true. Like I've been so hyper focused for the past few months on how Faith and hope connect and how can I have faith in the Lord and not faith in an outcome, but still have hope in an outcome and hope in the Lord.
And I've just been trying to figure that all out. And so I love what he said about how sometimes they're not always precisely distinguished. We just know that we need to have faith, hope, and charity. And that those things, three things together, are what we need. Help us to take continued steps in our relationship with Jesus Christ, but also just in life that we know that the things in our future are going to work out as long as we're doing our best to move forward with those three attributes.
Lynnette: Yeah, and I think sometimes when we talk about hope. It's like this thing that you can't really nail down, like, oh, yeah, I hope that this thing [00:20:00] happens, or I hope that I get an A on that test, or I hope this, or whatever. But if we're focusing our hope in Jesus Christ, I think that gives it a whole other dimension.
Meaning that we have hope in Christ and not like you said in an outcome Well, I don't know because that kind of gets muddy You said that you are trying to have faith in Christ, but hope in an outcome. But what if that outcome doesn't happen, then does that mean that Christ isn't aware of you or whatever?
Like how do you develop hope in Christ without the expectation of that outcome?
Elise: I know it's something, yeah, that I've really been thinking about a lot and I've talked about it with so many different people and we all are just kind of like, yeah, I don't know because it's so hard. Cause on my mission and throughout, I guess my whole life, it's just, I've learned a lot about how you have to put your faith in the Lord and not your faith in an outcome.
And so like our [00:21:00] mission president would talk about it a lot where it's like, yes, you can have so much faith, but that faith has to be in the Lord. Like you can't have faith in a person accepting a baptismal date. It's like your faith is in the Lord and you can hope for this person to accept a baptismal date, but if they don't, then like that shouldn't make your faith waiver because your faith was not in them accepting a baptismal date.
Your faith was in Jesus Christ. And that's something that, as I come to learn that more and more every day, I'm like, okay, I can have faith in the Lord. And not faith in an outcome. But then I was like, well, do I have hope in the Lord? Or do I have hope in an outcome? Because you always say like, yeah, I'm really hoping I get this job.
Or I'm really hoping this boy says yes when I asked him on a date. Or I'm really hoping that the dining hall serves my favorite food today. You know, like anything like that, like you, you get your hopes up about a [00:22:00] lot of trivial, different things in life. But in reality, like your hope, can be in an outcome. And most of the time like we do get our hopes up about different outcomes but in reality our hope should be grounded and focused in Jesus Christ as well. And I was reading a devotional or a talk or something about how faith is in Jesus Christ and hope is in his atonement.
And I thought that that was really insightful about how, like, Jesus Christ, our faith is in him and his power and the things that he can do for us. And hope is through his sacrifice for us and all of the many blessings that come from that. And so, yeah, I've just been thinking about that a lot.
Lynnette: Yeah, I don't know.
Like, like you said, the lines kind of get muddy because they all work together. And it's okay if we don't understand fully where one ends and the other begins. But how I've thought about it, and when we're talking [00:23:00] about faith and hope in Christ, not necessarily hope that I get an A or hope that I get a boyfriend or whatever it is that you're hoping for, but when your faith and your hope are centered in Jesus Christ.
How I like to think of it is that faith is believing in Christ and hope is believing Christ. And when you said hope in his atonement, I guess those two things for me go hand in hand. That his atonement and everything that he did for me while he was on the earth, and then continues to do as he works to save each one of us. Right?
But if we believe him, then we believe that his Atonement applies to us. Then we believe him when he says "come unto me, all you that are heavy laden and I will give you rest." Then we believe him when he says that repentance is possible for us or that joy is possible in this life and all these different [00:24:00] things that he taught, they are real and they apply to us personally and not just like, yeah, like he died for all of our sins.
He did do that, but then sometimes, it's hard to believe that actually applies to us in our situation where we are right now. And so I don't know if that's helpful for anyone. That's how I like to think of it.
Elise: I love that because it's so true that we have to believe Christ and we have to believe in his promises and it goes back to him being a promise keeper and like back to our covenant.
So we have to believe that he's going to uphold his end of the bargain. And like when we really, truly do have. that faith and trust in the Lord, then I feel like the hope can come more naturally. But it is something that we still gain from the Lord because it's his promise. He's promising us these amazing blessings and we just have to have the hope that someday we're going to receive them even if [00:25:00] it's not here and now.
And usually it isn't here and now and that's what makes it hard to keep having hope because we don't know the exact timing like he does. But just hoping and knowing and trusting that these things are going to come to pass someday is something that I struggle with because I'm not a patient person, but something that I know is just such a key part of the gospel. That those things tie hand in hand, and we really just do have to believe that he's going to do what he says he's going to do.
Lynnette: Right. Yeah. It comes back, like you said, to, to covenants, to believing him and to believing in his promises and to believing all that he taught and all that he said. And also, I think it comes back to, to developing that personal relationship with him, because that's how we get to truly know him. And that's, I think, where we go from believing in him, to believing him, [00:26:00] because we develop that relationship and know that he's got our back. He's our advocate with the father. He's the mediator. He's all, all the different things that are going to help us get back to heaven. Those are his job, right?
And we can develop that, that personal relationship with him, but that. takes work. And hopefully we're working on doing the things that will build that relationship, and they're the simple things. They're the primary answers that we hear all the time right? Read your scripture. Say your prayers. Go to the temple. Like do the things that he's asked you to do. The simple things are what ultimately build that relationship.
And then hopefully we're doing that in times where we're not in crisis mode. So that when we get to the time where maybe we are, we have that foundation built that will help us to hold on to that hope when it feels hard.
Elise: It's so [00:27:00] true. I think it's so amazing that everything that we talk about, like everything in the gospel just ties so perfectly back to Jesus Christ. And it shows that the answer really always is the Savior because it's like, yeah, how do I receive hope? How do I strengthen my faith? How do I progress? How do I get through this? And it's just, the answer is always the Savior. And sometimes it differs in the way that we apply that answer. But in reality, it all just comes down to, like you said, strengthening our relationship with Him.
And then He'll give us the individual help that we need. I just think that that's helped me so much as I've been going through this hope crisis for these past, this past little while, just knowing that, like, recognizing that I am having problems having hope. And just recognizing that strengthening my relationship with the Savior and strengthening my faith will also help strengthen my hope in turn, [00:28:00] as I really put an effort into it.
And I have seen that, and it's not like I have perfect hope now, I'm definitely still working on it. But just seeing how the Lord blesses me as I'm trying. And I'm trying to have hope, and I'm trying to have faith, and just trying to take those steps into the darkness and know that something good is waiting for me. And He always takes care of me. He always does.
Lynnette: That's a beautiful testimony. Thank you. It reminds me. Currently, at the time of this recording, Easter was yesterday. And in our ward, I am in the choir. I'm one of the, I'm one of the non singers in the choir. But I go and I sing and we sang the song from the Lamb of God.
If you have heard it, it's called Here is Hope. And we have this beautiful soloist that sang most of it, and the choir kind of accompanied her. If you haven't [00:29:00] heard the song, look it up. It's by Rob Gardner, Here is Hope. And it just reminds me of a quote in that song.
And what the song is about is it's Mary, Jesus's mother, after his crucifixion. She's standing at the foot of the cross, and she's singing this song about her son, essentially. It says, "Here despair cries boldly, claiming this its victory. Sweeter peace enfolds me. Hope did not die here, but here was given. Here is hope."
And it's much more beautiful if you listen to the actual song, but it just, it just makes me think that. Yeah. I mean, Jesus died, Jesus suffered. He did all the things that he did so that we could have hope. And because he did all of that, no matter what's happening in our life, [00:30:00] he has descended below all things. He has felt all that we're feeling and he knows how to succor us. That's part of the Atonement is that he needed to feel our pain and our sorrow and our despair and our lack of hope so that he would know how to get us through those times.
And it is my firm conviction that he will, if we come unto him. And that doesn't mean that the hard things are going to disappear. They may not, and they may keep piling on and the storm may keep raging. But what I have experienced is that sometimes the Lord calms the storm and sometimes he calms the child in the middle of the storm. And more often, I think for me, it has been the latter, where storm will continue to rage. And I have to learn to trust that the Lord can, can get me through the storm eventually. But in coming unto him, he can help me to weather [00:31:00] the storm and to feel peace amid the storm and to find hope amid the storm.
And I think that's a challenge. I think that's, that's part of the reason why we're here.
Elise: It's not, it's not easy, but I know that hope is a Christlike attribute and no Christlike attribute is ever easy to obtain. It's never easy to develop. It's you have to be put to the test in order to gain faith and hope and charity and patience and kindness and like all of these things.
They're things that we want to be able to attain so that. We can become more like the Savior, but it's never easy. And so hope is no exception. And I love what you said about how the Lord calms you in the storm instead of calming the storm. And I think that that's so, so true because so much of the time, our trials and consequences happen just because we're mortal and [00:32:00] because we are imperfect and this world is imperfect and other people are imperfect. And we just suffer consequences of our actions or other people's actions.
And instead of the Lord just magically changing the situation and making everything perfect, He just calms us and teaches us a lesson through it. And I know that hope is no exception to that. And I've learned that a lot in the past few months.
Lynnette: Amen, sister. Well, this has been fun here today to talk about hope.
I think, again, it's something that a lot of people can. can relate to the lack of hope and trying to find hope when things are really hard. And so hopefully we've shed some light onto something that will help someone here today to fill of the Savior's love for them and the hope that Through him, all will eventually be made right.
Elise: Definitely. So, just [00:33:00] know that if you're struggling with hope, you're not alone. I can testify that hope really does come through the Savior. Faith comes through Him. Everything good comes through Him. And One of my very favorite scriptures that I found several years ago when I was going through a similar kind of hope crisis, and I just had very, very bleak outlook on everything that the future had to offer me, and I read this scripture.
It's Doctrine and Covenants section 45 verse 62, and it says, "For verily I say unto you that great things await you."
And that verse was like a healing balm to my soul and I just know that great things do await me, they await all of us, they await every single covenant keeping righteous member of the Savior's fold and I know that those great things that await us, they all do come through the Savior and that they will come even if it's not right now and it [00:34:00] probably isn't right now, but they will come and I do know that.
Lynnette: Thank you. Thank you for sharing that and for being here today to share your thoughts and your experiences.
Elise: Anytime. I loved it.
Lynnette: All right. Well, we'll have you back again here soon.
Elise: Sounds good.
