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Staying Hopeful When the World Feels Like a Dumpster Fire: Tips I’ve Learned From the “Pros”
September first was my one-year anniversary working with TMS Global. My job is to interview cross-cultural witnesses (CCWs, or missionaries) and write their stories. You’d think this job has the potential to be depressing. After all, the world kind of feels like a dumpster fire so much of the time. But I’ve found that the opposite has happened. These people I talk with who live and work in very hard places are often filled with optimism and hope, rather than the despair I expect. Here are a few things I’ve learned about how to stay hopeful when the world feels like a dumpster fire. 1. Recognize that the world is…
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A Poem for Those Who Mourn
I wonder if when Jesus died the disciples wanted to be shut up in the tomb, too. “Block out the light! Tell the oxygen to leave! Roll the stone in place, and keep it there! For hope is dead and so are we!” Gathered together behind a locked door, I wonder if they said, “This wood is not strong enough, this room is not dark enough, to match our pain.” They did not know or understand that the tomb would not stay closed or dark forever. That as dawn illuminated the sky on the third day, so did His glory illuminate the space where the stone had once been. Death,…
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Breathe Into These Dry Bones
(Inspired by Ezekiel 37) There are times I’m forced to see the barrenness inside of me. All the things that will never be, things too broken for science to fix, plans that can no longer exist. In the valley of dry bones and dried up dreams hope long forgotten life left long ago. Will it return? Only You know. The name of this place is scarcity. When I emerge from it who will I be? Abundance or just an empty shell? Together or broken, I cannot tell. I feel as cracked and dried up as the bones in this place. Hopes dead so long they’ve been bleached by the sun.…
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What Depression Feels Like (For Me)
It is as if my mind is a computer program, but a virus has entered in and corrupted the code. Every now and then the original code comes to the surface, and the program seems to run normally. For example, when I felt proud of a friend who performed at an event at my school, I recognized that emotion as part of the original code. But on a different occasion, the corrupted code was running. I was with some friends, doing an activity I know that I love, and yet I was not enjoying myself at all. In fact I kept having to talk myself into staying just a few…
