The world we live in today is robbing us of our hope. Satan is the master of discouragement, insecurity, and self-loathing. In October 1986, the General Women’s Meeting focused on hope and four really important talks were given.

 

Have you ever seen the movie, The Unsinkable Molly Brown? Early in the movie, she states how she hates the word down but loves the word up. Do we take this as a Hollywood fantasy, or seriously consider the ramifications of this idea?

I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve felt alone, defeated, and left empty. There were some years when I hated going to church because I always sat alone, no one spoke to me, the kids were terrible. It was really easy to get waaayyy down on myself.

But we are not left without hope. Our hope can’t be just on the good times, or the fancy people, or attention, or popularity. Those things are temporary. Life is full of ups and downs and we need something to keep us up when we’re down. Even more than good friends and a loving family, which again, some of us can’t depend on, we have a Savior who suffered for all our own suffering. He really does know how we feel, and He has promised that He will never leave us alone.

So, how do we know that Jesus is there for us? How do we seriously seek hope in Christ?

As I listen to General Conference in our day, it seems to me that our church leaders often remind us that we are children of a loving God. I think it’s because Satan is doing everything he can to make us forget it. If God doesn’t exist, we can convince ourselves that there’s no one on our side, so there can be no hope. Where can we go to find what’s true? The scriptures.

When someone loses hope and falls into a depression, it’s likely they’ve stopped reading their scriptures. Claiming to no longer believe, they stop doing the very thing that will bring them hope. And what is hope? It’s knowing that we will return to our Heavenly Parents because our Savior paid for our sins and weaknesses, making us clean to stand before Them again. There is no greater hope and when we deny that of ourselves because we simply don’t believe, Satan wins.

If anyone had the right to be miserable, hopeless, and seriously depressed, it was Moroni. He was the last of the Nephites who spent the better part of 20 years hiding so the Lamanites wouldn’t find him and kill him. Did he feel forgotten? Did he think he was being punished? Did he wish to end his own life? Did he give up?

Instead of feeling sorry for himself and letting his despair overwhelm him (which face it, many of us struggle with these very thoughts), he kept writing, knowing that someday we would read his words. He had his father’s encouraging letters, which he reread and wrote to us about, teaching us how to recognize the difference between the devil and the Spirit of Christ. He shared his father’s words about faith, hope, and charity. And that charity never faileth but rescues all of us because charity is Christ. His father wrote about how even little children are alive in Christ, never punished or forgotten for things they have no control over. Then, Moroni, after this long, extended, and mostly difficult trial, leaves us with his testimony, ending with these words:

“And now I bid unto all, farewell, I soon go to rest in the paradise of God, until my spirit and body shall again reunite, and I am brought forth triumphant through the air, to meet you before the pleasing bar of the great Jehovah, the Eternal Judge of both quick and dead. Amen.”

Does this sound like he’s lost hope? Even after all he’s been through? How did he get through it? He gives all credit to his Savior. And read it again! See where he says he looks forward to meeting with you and with me and with everyone? We are all invited to finish the race as he did!

Today, more than ever before, because we are all susceptible, we cannot lose hope. When we lose hope, we deny Jesus Christ and His power to save us. Anything that works against our salvation is sin simply because of that denial. Pres. Benson begged us, in his talk to:

• Call upon our loving Heavenly Father in sacred prayer.
• Read the scriptures, especially the Book of Mormon.
• Read our patriarchal blessings.
• Set simple goals and feel the accomplishment of them.
• Don’t settle for less than what the Lord wants to give you.

The battle rages for our souls. Push Satan down and look up to our Redeemer and Rescuer. As Molly Brown said, “I hate the word down but I love the word up. ‘Cuz up means hope, and that’s just what I got.”