Is the steady drip, drip, drip of negative news getting to you?
If you're like me, you're nodding your head in agreement.
TV newscasters constantly proclaim new reasons to panic–or at least be fearful. We "little people" struggle to distinguish between what's true and what's just another deceptive suggestion.
Here's a tip to save your sanity. For decades the maxim in the news business has been:
If it bleeds, it leads.
Obviously, politicians and wannabes live by this slogan, too. That's why so many of their speeches feature "If __, then __ ."
Conjecture soon is reported as fact by everyone who stands in front of a TV camera and then repeated by every broadcaster.
Soon the rest of us are saying to each other, "Well, it must be true because that's what I hear on all the TV channels."
Always, we get to choose. Will we panic or will we breathe deep and hang on tight to a realistic perspective?
What if it's real? What if it's close to home?
Certainly, this worldwide pandemic is real. No wonder we're nervous, maybe even running scared. Everything keeps changing, from one report to the next. All we can do is follow instructions and try to live healthy.
That may not be the whole story. We may face a serious problem or a scary illness. Or perhaps someone we know and love is having a hard time. We don't know how to help. We can't go where they are and just hold them close.
No matter what the situation, you and I still have the power to speak hope. To shine a ray of light into the life of a person who feels overwhelmed, whether in our family, our church or our community.
How? By staying in touch. By sprinkling words of hope into our texts and conversations. As we tell others to look on the bright side, we'll be encouraging ourselves, too.
This may not seem like much, but it can be huge
Our words matter. Think of tossing a stone into a pond and watching how the ripples spread.
Many great national leaders of the past understood that.
Take President Franklin D. Roosevelt, for example, elected in 1932, in the midst of the Great Depression. Love him or hate him, it took courage for FDR to say in his inaugural speech:
"The only thing we have to fear is fear itself."
No doubt many thought he was mad. Yet his words lifted hearts all across the country and became FDR's most-remembered statement.
The effects of the Depression lingered for years. Then, nine years later, came Pearl Harbor and World War II.
The Brits were already at war and they needed hope, too
They got it from their prime minister, Winston Churchill. He regularly broadcast to his nation and his defiant words put iron in British spines.
Take his slogan, "KBO." That stood for, "Keep Buggerin' On."
That's exactly what thousands of Londoners did during enemy nighttime bombing raids. I knew a couple of those Brits. For months on end they spent every night in the city's subway tunnels, trying to sleep–on benches, on the floor, on the platforms. Every morning they dragged themselves topside and looked around at new destruction and piles of rubble. Then they dug in and cleared away wreckage and buried the bodies of those who were killed. All this besides keeping at their work, doing whatever it took to keep the country going.
In Brit-speak, they kept buggerin' on.
Another of Churchill's famous statements has hung above my desk for years: "Never, never, never give up!"
Throughout WW II, FDR and Churchill both held out hope and it shone as brightly in the gloom as a miner's lamp in a coal mine. No wonder people clustered around radio sets and hung on their every word.
Hope is as necessary for life as oxygen is for the lungs
Every day you and I broadcast to an audience–our loved ones or people around us–usually one person at a time. Do we more often speak words that lift that person's spirit? Or do we simply add to their load of discouragement?
Let's be prepared, ready with hopeful Bible verses that reassure. (If they speak to our hearts, chances are they will to another, as well.) Here are three for starters:
Find rest, O my soul, in God alone; my hope comes from him. He alone is my rock and my salvation; he is my fortress, I will not be shaken. –Psalm 62:5
Those who hope in the LORD will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; They will run and not grow weary. They will walk and not be faint. -Psalm 40:31
May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. –Romans 15:13
The Bible is a treasure trove. Why not keep track of verses that speak to you so you can pass them on?
And no matter what comes, let's smile and "K.B.O."
Lenore
