THE POWER OF HOPE

After this conversation below with Gilbert Girl, it made me start thinking a lot.  So bear with me while I try to write down and express these thoughts I've had.

The other day I was talking to Gilbert Girl on the phone.  She was telling me about the movie she had just watched the night before with her children, "Neverending Story".  I've never seen this movie, but she said she was struck with this quote she heard towards the end  of the movie:
Atreyu: But why is Fantasia dying, then?
G'mork: Because people have begun to lose their hopes and forget their dreams. So the Nothing grows stronger.
Atreyu: What is the Nothing?
G'mork: It's the emptiness that's left. It's like a despair, destroying this world. And I have been trying to help it.
Atreyu: But why?
G'mork: Because people who have no hopes are easy to control; and whoever has the control... has the power!

I looked up Hope in the dictionary.  Here are some things it says about Hope:
- the feeling that what is wanted can be had or that events will turn out for the best.
-to look forward to with desire and reasonable confidence
-to believe, desire, or trust
-to feel that something desired may happen
- hope against hope, to continue to hope, although the outlook does not warrant it


I also looked up hopelessness in the dictionary:
-providing no hope; beyond optimism or hope

- impossible to accomplish, solve, resolve
which basically had the same definitions as despair:
- to lose all hope or confidence

- to lose, give up, or be without hope
But here is one more definition under hopelessness:
-not able to learn or act, perform or work as desired; inadequate for the purpose
This last definition makes more sense when you think of the last line of the quote above:
"Because people who have no hopes are easy to control..."

What is it that we hope for?  I can remember as a kid asking my mom what she wanted for Christmas.  She would always reply:  "All I want is for my children to be healthy and happy."  I used to think: "What a lame thing to ask for."  But that was before I had children myself. 

There is a Scottish proverb that says: "Were it not for hope the heart would break."
I think people who are religious have hope.  We hope for a better world.  We hope for a life after this one.  We hope to be with our loved ones in the next life.  We hope to do well in this life. 

That's brings me to another quote I found: "Hope is the parent of faith." (Cyrus A. Bartol)  So if we have hope, and we do hope, then what?  I think it brings us to prayer.  We pray to a higher power and ask for help with our hope.  After we pray, we have faith that our hope will come about. 

What if we have no hope?  Remember the last line of the quote?  "Because people who have no hopes are easy to control."  I think a lack of hope brings despair, depression and a loss of self-worth.  I also think that Satan is real and when we have no hope then he can influence us more to be depressed, which can then lead to a whole lot of other things.  I think that is why we do need both faith and hope.  In the Book of Mormon, Moroni says "Wherefore,  if a man have faith he must needs have hope; for without faith there cannot be any hope." (Moroni 7:42)

If you want to read a really good talk about hope, click on this link below:
LDS.org - Ensign Article - The Infinite Power of Hope

Well, those are at least some of my thoughts.  Thanks for reading.  I'd also like to hear some of your thoughts on hope.