Living with Hope - Part I

I talked in our Stake Relief Society Women's Conference today. I learned so much pulling my talk together. Thought I would share it a piece at a time, because it is really long. I'll put it up serial style. Enjoy!

Times are tough. If you are the age of my children, let me assure you that you are not imagining things. Times are tough. If you are my mother’s age and lived through the Great Depression and a World War, you have seen tougher times, but as a baby boomer, I have not. I was an awkward adolescent during the Vietnam War protests, the summer of love, and ‘sex,drugs & rock and roll.’ Those were scary times, angry times, ’what-is-this-world-coming-to' times. I was a young married mom in the 80’s when gas went over a dollar a gallon, unemployment rates nationally rose above 10%, prices for food and clothing inflated at budget-busting 13.5% annually, and the best mortgage you could find was priced at 16%. Those were ‘put-your-shoulder-to-the-wheel’ times, ‘will-we-have-milk-for-the-kids-at-the-end-of-the-month’ times. But these times are tougher with their combination of economic and moral and social and spiritual challenges.
Have I inspired hope yet???
I think times of relative prosperity and peace are the calm before the storm – a time to prepare. Once the storm arrives we look back at those times wistfully, wondering when they will return. Just like winters with too much snow when we get tired of shoveling it and driving in it and long for a return of warm weather, we hope tough times will pass quickly. But some winters last a long time and so do some challenges, overwhelming us and bringing on feelings of discouragement, worry or sadness.
Have I inspired hope now???
I’ve attended my share of women’s conferences, broadcasts, and education weeks with my sisters or my friends. And sometimes I leave them overwhelmed, worried and discouraged! That’s why they serve lunch at the end – because food makes us all feel better. Anyway, between food and great messages and time with my friends, I usually leave these events fired up, happy and enthusiastic right up until I walk in my door at home and realize that my life didn’t change at all while I was gone!
How’s that hope thing coming???
So my assignment today, at the end of these wonderful messages and in spite of the challenges we each face, is to help us find a way to maintain the happiness we walk out of here with and to sustain our determination to be loving, courageous, faithful daughters of God – in other words, how to live with hope.
In the last year two of my children have brought me into contact with nations and peoples who have lived thru very difficult times. I have become a student of their histories and how events have impacted them as a people. I certainly don’t know everything about them, but I have tried to put myself in their shoes, I have read and observed what I could, and I have been taught some important lessons as a result.
My oldest daughter and her family moved to China last summer. In anticipation of that move, I started reading books that would give me an understanding of that land and its people. Last month I visited China and plan to go back next month. I loved rubbing shoulders with the Chinese. They were very friendly and curious toward me. These people are strong people who love their families and their country. After centuries of feudal warfare and famine due to drought or flooding, the Chinese are by and large content at this time to put their faith in their government - a very repressive government in matters of free speech (think Great Firewall of China), but one that for the last 40 years has kept the peace and ensured that they had food. Food and peace are compelling issues with all people - even Jesus Christ struggled to teach those who wanted a government to save them now instead of an Eternal Savior.
My son returned home from his mission to Hungary just over a year ago, so last spring we traveled back to that land to meet the people he had come to love. After WWII, Hungary came under Soviet rule. It shares a border with Austria, so one of its borders formed a part of the infamous Iron Curtain. From the beginning, the Hungarian people were resistant to Soviet rule. Ten years into that rule, in 1956, they staged a rebellion against the Russians. Their brave Freedom Fighters were honored as Time Magazine’s Man of the Year in 1956 even though their revolution failed. They gained greater autonomy after that, nevertheless from 1946 to 1989, as a Soviet satellite, all faith was repressed and those raised during that time were raised in a godless society. In the late 1980’s, as international pressure mounted to bring down the Berlin Wall and the Iron Curtain, Hungary led the way by opening its border with Austria creating a vast hole in the Iron Curtain. Within weeks the Berlin Wall fell. When the Wall fell, Soviet rule by repression crumbled and in its place there was a rise of economic opportunity and the democratic process.
So why do I tell you about China and Hungary? When I was asked to talk about hope, one place my thoughts went was to my understanding of these two nations. I felt like a key factor in the events that shaped them was hope – either its presence or the lack thereof. From them we can learn a lot about hope and its impact in our lives as individuals
Here is the thing I have observed about change in a country’s history. With a lifting of repression or an end of war or famine, immediately something rises up in the people – like bubbles in root beer. When you break the seal on a bottle, bubbles gather and push to the top. You twist the lid open a crack and they chase themselves into a froth. When the lid is removed, they foam up ‘en masse’ and spill over in wave after wave of effervescent energy. That energy in people in times of change is hope. All hope needs is a little crack of light to bring it rushing to the surface. With the slightest changes that hint at opportunity, hope pushes upward, seeking more light, opening the cracks wider, lighting hearts on fire and filling minds with possibilities. It’s hard to say what comes first – change or hope – for change begets hope, but hope clamors for change - in a very chicken-and-egg kind of scenario.